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UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
AT  LOS  ANGELES 


0«_ 


THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 


By  the  Same  Author 


The  Mirrors  of  Downing  Street 


THE   GLASS  OF 
FASHION 

SOME  SOCIAL  REFLECTIONS 

BY 
A  GENTLEMAN  WITH  A  DUSTER 

AUTHOR   OF   "THE   MIRRORS   OF  DOWNING   STREET" 

The  cymbals  crash, 

And  the  dancers  walk; 
With  long  silk  stockings, 

And  arms  of  chalk, 
Butterfly  skirts, 

And  white  breasts  bare; 
And  shadows  of  dead  men 

Watching  'em  there. 

— Alfred  Noyes. 


"  You  ask  me  if  I  am  going  to  '  The  Masquerade '  ? 
I  am  at  it:  Circumspice." — Cornelius  O'Dowd. 


ILLUSTRATED 


G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 

NEW  YORK  AND  LONDON 

TEbe   ikntcfeerbocfeer   press 

1921 


Copyright,  1921 

by 

G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons 

Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


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PREFACE   TO  THE   AMERICAN   EDITION 

In  a  letter  to  Mary  Gladstone,  the  painter  Burne- 
Jones,  who  was  also  an  idealist,  broke  into  lamentation 
over  the  quarrels  and  trivial  animosities  which  too  often 
exist  between  men  of  genius. 

My  dear  [he  exclaimed],  if  twelve  of  these  men 
would  hold  together  for  one  ten  years  the  whole  as- 
pect of  the  world  would  be  changed — and  twelve 
men  did  once  hold  together  and  the  whole  face  of  the 
world  was  changed. 


Uo  What  might  not  happen  to  this  world,  let  us  ask  our- 
selves, if  the  two  great  Commonwealths,  which  have 
inherited,  with  the  language  of  Shakespeare  and  Wyclif, 
*  the  moral  idealism  of  Milton  and  Lincoln,  held  together 
for  a  generation — not  for  any  political  end,  however 
worthy,  nor  to  impose  their  military  power  upon  man- 
kind, even  in  the  cause  of  universal  disarmament,  but 
merely  to  define,  make  manifest,  and  exalt  the  moral 
values  of  human  life? 

Because  I  believe  such  a  unity  is  possible,  nay,  is  in 
the  nature  of  things,  I,  heartily  wishful  for  the  moral 
comradeship   of  America  and   earnestly   seeking  the 


9  f\fj  Q 

■ 


57 


vi     PREFACE  TO  THE  AMERICAN  EDITION 

intellectual  alliance  of  America,  venture  in  true  friend- 
liness and  with  all  due  respect  to  address  this  personal 
word  to  the  American  reader  of  my  book,  The  Glass  of 
Fashion. 

I  would  say  to  him :  Since  the  questions  with  which 
this  pamphlet  deals  are  questions  of  importance  to  your 
country  as  well  as  to  mine,  do  not,  I  pray  you,  let  its 
English  setting  stand  in  the  way  of  your  American 
attention.  For  the  same  contagion  of  materialism  which 
is  attempting  to  destroy  us  is  also  attempting  to  destroy 
you,  and  the  same  depression  of  a  false  science  which  is 
weighing  down  the  human  spirit  in  these  British  Islands 
is  also  weighing  down  the  human  spirit  in  your  United 
States  of  America. 

You,  too,  have  your  Repingtons  and  Margots;  and 
you,  too,  have  the  same  heroic  but  ineffectual  goodness 
which  here  in  England  vainly  seeks  to  stem  the  mon- 
strous flood  of  modern  animalism.  We  are  both  of  us 
cursed  by  the  same  inheritance  from  the  last  century, 
the  inheritance  of  a  scientific  falsehood — that  "night- 
mare of  waste  and  death,"  as  Samuel  Butler  called  it, 
which  is  "as  baseless  as  it  is  repulsive."  We  are  both 
held  by  the  same  philosophical  paralysis  which  has 
crept  over  the  human  mind  ever  since  the  dark  and  dis- 
figuring shadow  of  Darwinism  fell  upon  the  fields  of  life. 
In  both  of  us  the  cancer  of  cynicism  (that  arrest  of  the 
moral  tissues,  that  check  in  spiritual  development) 
preys  upon  the  divine  faculties  of  our  humanity  whereby 


PREFACE  TO  THE  AMERICAN  EDITION    vii 

alone  we  can  respond  to  the  joy,  wonder,  and  beauty  of 
existence.  With  you,  as  with  us,  life  has  lost  its  way, 
and  neither  for  you  nor  for  us  can  there  be  hope  of  com- 
ing into  our  true  inheritance  until  we  have  recovered 
those  title-deeds  to  immortality  which  our  fathers 
threw  away  when  they  set  out  to  wander  in  the  wilder- 
ness of  this  false  materialism. 

If,  then,  there  is  hope  of  a  Renaissance  in  England, 
there  must  also  be  hope  of  a  Renaissance  in  America. 
And  the  same  spirit  which  can  give  this  new  birth  to 
England  can  also  give  a  new  birth  to  America.  There- 
fore let  us  take  counsel  together,  and  if  we  come  to  a 
like  decision  in  this  great  matter,  let  us  set  out  as  one 
spirit  to  change  the  face  of  the  world. 

Now  this  is  my  conviction :  Out  of  the  stagnant  fen 
of  materialism  into  which  humanity  seems  at  this  time 
to  be  fast  sinking,  with  all  the  glories  of  its  mechanical 
achievements  and  all  the  splendours  of  its  earliest  poetic 
enthusiasms,  like  a  sun  that  has  had  its  day,  we  can  be 
lifted  only  by  one  of  those  great  waves  of  moral  en- 
lightenment which  in  the  first  century  of  our  dispensa- 
tion saved  mankind  from  the  darkness  of  paganism  and 
in  the  sixteenth  century  rescued  Europe  from  the 
clutches  of  an  iron  dogmatism. 

If  we  would  live  we  must  overthrow  the  false  science 
which  is  destroying  us,  as  the  fathers  of  Christianity 
overthrew  paganism,  and  the  fathers  of  the  Renaissance 
overthrew  authority.    In  both  of  those  great  epochs  of 


viii  PREFACE  TO  THE  AMERICAN  EDITION 

the  past,  humanity  escaped  from  the  prison-house  of  a 
tyranny  into  the  open  country  of  freedom.  Life,  feeling 
itself  at  the  point  of  death,  flung  itself  far  forward  into 
an  untrodden  future.  With  us  it  must  be  the  same.  We 
cannot  niggle  with  the  oppression  which  is  destroying 
us;  we  must  throw  it  off,  throw  it  far  from  us,  and  go 
forward  to  a  new  dawn  in  human  history. 

To  this  end  I  suggest  that  we  should  look  at  Fashion, 
which  shows  us  the  set  of  the  human  tide  more  strikingly 
than  any  other  manifestation  of  contemporary  thought. 
I  suggest  that  we  should  take  Fashion  seriously.  I 
suggest  that  we  should  take  the  measure  of  the  leaders 
of  mankind,  those  who  set  the  fashion  of  daily  life, 
whose  influence  is  the  moral  climate  in  which  we  breathe 
and  form  our  opinions.  I  argue  that  if  their  measure 
does  not  square  with  the  highest  hopes  of  the  human 
race,  and  does  not  square  with  the  deepest  needs  of  the 
human  spirit,  then  we  must  put  those  leaders  away  from 
us,  and  find  others  more  worthy  of  man's  place  in  the 
universe.  This  can  be  done  only  by  right-thinking, 
but  right-thinking  which  is  militant. 

With  you,  as  with  us,  the  fashion  of  daily  life  is  set 
by  those  who  have  sacrificed  to  a  false  science,  almost 
without  thought,  the  one  great  secret  of  joy,  namely, 
faith  in  a  creative  purpose,  faith  in  man's  immortality. 
It  is  that  secret  we  must  recover  for  mankind,  and  we 
can  recover  it  only  by  making  remorseless  war  on  this 
false  science.    It  is  useless  to  make  war  on  luxury,  or  to 


PREFACE  TO  THE  AMERICAN  EDITION    ix 

make  war  on  folly,  or  to  make  war  on  the  odious  ugli- 
ness of  materialism.  We  must  make  war  on  the  thought 
which  brings  such  spiritual  malformations  into  exist- 
ence. Right  thinking,  armed  with  the  sword  of  truth, 
must  destroy  wrong-thinking  drunk  with  the  dope  of 
Circean  lies. 

Our  first  reason  for  making  war  on  that  false  thought 
is  this :  it  is  destroying  us ;  our  second  reason,  that  it  is 
not  true. 

Darwinism  not  only  justifies  the  sensualist  at  the 
trough  and  Fashion  at  her  glass ;  it  justifies  Prussianism 
at  the  cannon,  and  Bolshevism  at  the  prison-door.  If 
Darwinism  be  true,  if  Mind  is  to  be  driven  out  of  the 
universe  and  accident  accepted  as  a  sufficient  cause  for 
all  the  majesty  and  glory  of  physical  nature,  then  there 
is  no  crime  of  violence,  however  abominable  in  its  cir- 
cumstances and,  however  cruel  in  its  execution  which 
cannot  be  justified  by  success,  and  no  triviality,  no 
absurdity  of  Fashion,  which  deserves  a  censure:  more — 
there  is  no  act  of  disinterested  love  and  tenderness,  no 
deed  of  self-sacrifice  and  mercy,  no  aspiration  after 
beauty  and  excellence,  for  which  a  single  reason  can  be 
adduced  in  logic. 

On  these  grounds  alone  Darwinism  is  condemned; 
but  it  is  condemned  also  on  scientific  grounds.     Dar- ' 
winism  explains  only  the  least  interesting  changes  and 
modifications  in  physical  structure:  it  does  not  explain 
the  movement  of  life  or  its  manifest  direction  towards 


x    PREFACE  TO  THE  AMERICAN  EDITION 

excellence ;  and  as  to  origins,  and  as  to  the  final  destina- 
tion of  all  this  vast  and  orderly  movement  of  life,  it  is 
dumb.  Nevertheless  this  false  science,  this  utterly- 
inadequate  theory,  which  was  challenged  at  the  outset, 
doubted  by  great  men  throughout  its  victorious  course 
of  dominion,  and  which  is  now  acknowledged  by  every 
thinker  to  be  but  a  partial  explanation  of  a  few  not  very 
important  phenomena,  still  rules  the  mind  of  the  multi- 
tude. The  mob  believes  in  Darwinian  evolution,  be- 
lieves that  the  universe  is  an  accident,  life  is  an  accident, 
and  beauty  is  an  accident.  It  has  made  up  its  mind  on 
hearsay,  and  incorporated  into  its  moods,  without  real- 
isation of  the  logical  consequences,  a  theory  of  existence 
which  is  as  false  as  it  is  destructive.  And  this  mob,  com- 
posed of  all  classes,  carries  the  destinies  of  the  human 
race.  It  is  not  with  the  philosopher  and  man  of  science 
we  have  got  to  reckon,  but  with  a  doped,  embittered, 
and  now  incurious  mass — the  laggard  and  joyless  bulk 
of  mankind  which  is  blundering  because  it  walks  in  its 
sleep. 

We  are  in  the  hands  of  cynicism.  All  those  high  and 
beautiful  things  which  the  noblest  sons  of  men  have 
cherished  in  all  generations  now  stand  at  the  peril  of 
brutality ;  and  no  statesmanship  can  save  them.  The  one 
insurance  against  calamity  is  a  new  "climate  of  opin- 
ion," universal  as  the  air  we  breathe.  The  mob  must 
be  awakened.  The  windows  of  the  house  of  life  must 
be  flung  wide  open.    The  mind  of  humanity  must  live. 


PREFACE  TO  THE  AMERICAN  EDITION    xi 

It  is  for  those  of  us  who  hold  that  without  faith  in  the 
immortality  of  man  there  can  be  no  right  thinking  to 
assert  that  great  faith  with  a  crusading  valour,  to 
assert  it  and  re-assert  it,  until  humanity  recovers  its 
spiritual  dignity  and  the  long  labours  of  evolution  find 
at  last  their  final  impulse  in  the  conscious  co-operation 
of  mankind. 


INTRODUCTION 

With  no  disrespect  to  the  House  of  Lords,  I  consider  there 
is  no  position  higher  than  that  of  an  English  country  gentle- 
man.— Pemberton  Milnes. 

The  grave  moralist  concerns  himself  with  evils  so 
flagrant  that  no  one  is  in  any  doubt  as  to  their  nature. 
He  is  the  policeman  of  society,  keeping  his  eye  on  the 
burglar,  the  publican,  and  the  prostitute.  The  satirist 
and  the  comic  artist,  on  the  other  hand,  are  concerned 
with  such  matters  as  fashion  and  manners,  matters 
which  seem  beneath  the  notice  of  the  grave  moralist, 
but  which  nevertheless  exercise  a  more  potent  influence 
on  society  than  the  teaching  of  philosophers,  the  pro- 
grammes of  political  reformers,  and  the  machinations 
of  the  criminal  classes. 

Folly,  not  vice,  is  the  enemy.  Our  curse  is  not  origi- 
nal sin  but  aboriginal  stupidity.  It  is  human  to  err, 
inhuman  to  practise  iniquity.  We  blunder  rather  than 
sin.  Few  men  set  out  to  reach  hell,  but  most  of  us  are 
for  ever  losing  our  way  to  heaven. 

Folly,  as  an  aberration,  is  laughable;  as  a  fashion,  as  a 
rule  of  life,  it  is  disastrous. 

The  object  of  this  book  is  to  convince  people  of  two 


xiv  INTRODUCTION 

truths  hitherto  obscured  by  tolerance  and  careless 
thinking — the  danger  of  Folly:  the  value  to  a  liberal 
State  of  a  valid  Aristocracy.  I  would  persuade  men 
that  Folly,  which  has  never  cared  a  snap  of  its  fingers  for 
the  satirist,  is  a  pervasive  poison  which  corrupts  the 
entire  body  of  a  people,  and  that  a  democratic  State, 
if  it  would  make  a  powerful  contribution  to  the 
higher  life  of  the  human  race,  needs  at  its  head  a 
small  body  of  enlightened  people  conscious  of  its  duty 
to  the  Commonwealth  and  religiously  determined 
to  set  the  highest  possible  standard  in  manners  and 
morals. 

To  those  who  say  that  satire  is  the  proper  weapon  to 
be  directed  against  Folly,  and  declare  the  suggestion 
absurd  that  the  artillery  of  moral  indignation  should  be 
levied  against  such  trivial  things  as  the  excesses  of  Fash- 
ion, I  would  make  this  simple  answer:  Satire  is  the 
instrument  of  the  cynic,  not  of  the  critic,  the  tool  of  the 
destroyer,  not  of  the  builder,  and  its  victories  in  history 
have  been  chiefly  defeats  of  virtue,  not  destructions  of 
vice.  Folly  survives.  And  it  survives  in  the  cool  as- 
surance that  the  satires  which  have  been  directed 
against  it  are  so  many  bouquets  laid  at  its  triumphant 
feet. 

The  reason  of  this,  I  think,  is  plain  enough.  The 
satirist  is  a  spectator.  He  makes  amusing  or  stinging 
remarks  on  the  spectacle  of  human  activity,  rather  to 
obtain  the  applause  of  brother  cynics  than  to  assist 


INTRODUCTION  xv 

humanity  in  its  work.  He  is,  in  some  particulars,  a 
great  danger  to  the  State,  for  he  tends  to  make  a  com- 
munity believe  that  what  so  frivolous  or  ironic  a  spirit 
considers  laughable  cannot  conceivably  be  worth  the 
attention  of  serious  people. 

The  critic,  on  the  other  hand,  is  a  worker.  He  seeks 
to  help  the  labour  of  humanity  by  sound  advice  and 
true  guidance.  His  utterances  are  not  meant  to  amuse, 
to  wound,  or  to  destroy,  but  to  help.  He  desires  excel- 
lence. 

I  would  make  this  point  quite  clear  at  the  outset, 
because,  having  published  some  of  the  notes  of  this 
book  in  a  weekly  paper,  I  realise  from  letters  which 
have  reached  me  how  very  difficult  it  is  for  certain 
individuals  to  get  an  unaccustomed  notion  into  their 
heads.  It  seems  to  be  a  rooted  idea  with  numbers  of 
the  public  that  criticism  of  Aristocracy  is  a  part  of  the 
propaganda  of  revolution.  They  cannot  distinguish 
between  criticism  and  abuse ;  they  hold  that  the  remedy 
for  an  evil  is  to  hush  it  up — as  if  one  could  hush  up  a 
gramophone  at  an  open  window.  This  being  the  condi- 
tion of  a  number  of  minds,  the  reader  will  bear  with  me, 
I  hope,  while  I  endeavour  in  a  few  words  to  make  my 
purpose  perfectly  plain. 

I  am  setting  out  neither  to  laugh  at  Fashion,  after  the 
manner  of  the  satirists,  nor  to  abuse  it,  after  the  manner 
of  political  extremists,  but  to  criticise  it  in  the  spirit  of 
one  who  clearly  recognises  its  value  to  the  Common- 


xvi  INTRODUCTION 

wealth  and  would  have  it  faithful  to  its  duties  and  proud 
of  its  privileges. 

My  standpoint  explains  everything.  It  is  that  of 
the  central  classes.  I  regard  the  summit  of  Nobility 
from  the  middle-distance  of  the  Gentry.  It  is  in  the 
interests  of  the  entire  Commonwealth,  but  from  the 
position  of  the  central  classes,  that  I  criticise  the  set  of 
people  who  now  occupy  the  summit  of  our  national  life 
and  by  their  manners  and  morals  create  that  "climate 
of  opinion"  in  which  we  all  live.  I  would  persuade  these 
people  that  they  have  great  duties  and  great  responsi- 
bilities ;  and  further  I  would  convince  the  Gentry  that  it 
is  their  eminent  business  to  see  that  these  people  per- 
form those  duties  and  discharge  those  responsibilities. 

By  the  term  Fashion  I  mean  all  those  noisy,  ostenta- 
tious, and  frivolous  people,  patricians  and  plutocrats, 
politicians  and  financiers,  lawyers  and  tradesmen,  ac- 
tors and  artists,  who  have  scrambled  on  to  the  summit 
of  England's  national  life,  and  who,  setting  the  worst 
possible  examples  in  morals  and  manners,  are  never  so 
happy  as  when  they  are  making  people  talk  about  them. 
It  is  of  these  ostentatious  people  I  write,  and  my  chief 
hope  is  to  make  the  Gentry  of  England  talk  about  them 
in  such  a  manner  as  will  either  bring  them  to  a  sense  of 
their  duties  or  lead  to  their  expulsion  from  the  heights. 

Let  me  persuade  timorous  people  that  the  social 
order  has  much  more  to  fear  from  the  silence  of  the 
Gentry  in  this  matter  than  from  the  vituperative  abuse 


INTRODUCTION  xvii 

of  the  demagogue.  The  peril  of  our  day  is  the  implica- 
tion of  the  Gentry  of  England  in  the  notorious  vulgarity 
of  "all  that  is  fast,  furious,  and  fashionable";  there  lies 
a  main  opportunity  of  the  social  wrecker. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

Preface  to  the  American  Edition  .         .  v 

Introduction xiii 

I. — Principles  of  the  Commonwealth  .         .  3 

II. — Colonel  Repington's  Diaries          .         .  17 

III. — Some  Glimpses  of  the  Normal       .         .  27 

IV. — Mrs.  Asquith's  Autobiography      .         .  37 

V. — A  Study  in  Contrast      ....  57 

VI. — III  Effects 73 

VII.-— The  Other  Side 82 

VIII. — Manners 113 

IX. — Examples  in  Love    .        .        .        .        .137 

X. — Womanhood 153 

XL — Conclusion      .        .        .        .        .        .167 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


Margot  Asquith 

Lady  Harrowby 

Lord  Morley     .... 

General  Sir  Ian  Hamilton 

Rt.  Hon.  Arthur  James  Balfour 

The  Rt.  Hon.  W.  E.  Gladstone 

Mrs.  Gladstone  at  Hawarden 

Colonel  Charles  Repington 


Frontispiece 


16 
32 
48 
64 
80 
112 
144 


ANONYMITY 

We  should  be  able  to  use  from  our  hearts 
the  words  which  one  of  Mr.  Carlyle's  blood- 
thirsty heroes  spoke  with  his  lips,  "Let 
our  names  perish,  but  the  cause  prevail  "  ; 
or  if  we  cannot,  the  sooner  we  are  driven  to 
this,  and  are  taught  to  feel  that  our  names 
are  worth  nothing  except  as  they  help 
forward  the  cause,  the  better  it  will  be  for 
us.  F.  D.  Maurice. 

What  is  your  opinion  of  the  play  ? 

Well,  who's  it  by  ? 

That  is  a  secret  for  the  present. 

You  don't  expect  me  to  know  what  to 
say  about  a  play  when  I  don't  know  who 
the  author  is,  do  you  ? 

Fanny's  First  Play. 


% 


THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 


THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

CHAPTER  I 

PRINCIPLES  OF  THE  COMMONWEALTH 

Friend,  call  me  what  you  will;  no  jot  care  I: 
I  that  shall  stand  for  England  till  I  die. 
England!    The  England  that  rejoiced  to  see 
Hellas  unbound,  Italy  one  and  free; 
The  England  that  had  tears  for  Poland's  doom, 
And  in  her  heart  for  all  the  world  made  room; 
The  England  from  whose  side  I  have  not  swerved, 
The  Immortal  England  whom  I,  too,  have  served, 
Accounting  her  all  living  lands  above 
In  Justice,  and  in  Mercy,  and  in  Love. 

William  Watson. 

.  .  .  No  people  can  be  called  fully  civilised  until  there 
is  widely  diffused  among  its  members  the  sense  of  their  obli- 
gation, not  merely  to  obey  the  law,  but  to  obey  it  willingly, 
and  to  co-operate  in  enforcing  and  maintaining  it. — Ramsay 
Muir. 

What  is  the  meaning  of  England  ?  What  is  the  political 
value  of  that  name  in  the  world,  its  significance  in  the 
eyes  of  other  nations?  Is  it  possible  for  us  to  express 
in  simple  language  what  we  feel  to  be  the  historical 

3 


4  THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

definition  of  that  name,  that  great  name  of  England,  as 
Henry  James  has  it? 

In  the  spring  of  191 8,  Mr.  Alfred  Zimmern  published 
an  article  in  The  Round  Table  which  set  before  man- 
kind, with  a  lucidity,  a  temperance,  and  a  reverence  for 
truth  which  did  not  always  characterise  our  war  prop- 
aganda, the  three  doctrines  which  were  at  that  moment 
in  perilous  conflict. 

The  guns  (he  said)  are  still  speaking  as  in  19 14,  and 
they  will  go  on  speaking,  ever  more  forcibly,  till  victory  is 
achieved;  since,  in  the  great  argument  which  Prussia 
provoked,  no  other  decision  avails. 

But  side  by  side  with  the  guns,  and  mixing  its  music 
with  theirs,  goes  a  running  undercurrent  of  discussion,  of 
questioning,  of  philosophising.  Men  who  never  reasoned 
before  are  turning  their  minds  to  consider  the  cause  for 
which  their  continued  endurance  is  demanded. 

Do  not  let  us  forget  that  endurance ;  it  should  under- 
line the  definition  at  which  we  are  attempting  to  arrive. 
For  the  sake  of  England,  let  us  never  cease  to  remind 
ourselves,  men  endured  greater  horrors  than  ever  before 
in  the  history  of  mankind  visited  and  afflicted  the 
human  soul.  We  might  almost  say,  indeed,  that  from 
the  days  of  the  Homeric  contests  down  to  those  bur- 
lesque  battles  of  armoured  and  mounted  men  in  the  mid- 
dle ages,  and  on  to  the  almost  bloodless  manoeuvres  of 
1871,  war  had  never  existed  until  1914.  With  a  higher 
sensibility  than  was  known  to  ancient  warriors,  with  a 


PRINCIPLES  OF  THE  COMMONWEALTH    5 

far  more  delicate  nervous  organism,  and  with  the 
greater  tenderness  of  heart  which  we  hope  is  one  of  the 
fruits  of  British  civilisation,  young  Englishmen  were 
called  upon  to  take  part  in  such  a  mangling  of  butchery, 
such  an  indiscriminate  anarchy  of  slaughter  and 
mutilation,  such  a  filthiness  of  Bedlamite  carnage,  as  no 
man  had  witnessed  from  the  beginning  of  time. 

And  this  ordeal  was  endured  in  circumstances  of 
the  greatest  disgust.  Separated  from  their  families, 
torn  from  their  homes,  and  thrown  into  the  constant 
and  intimate  companionship  of  entire  strangers  in  a 
foreign  land,  these  English  boys  lived  a  life  so  foreign 
and  unnatural  to  civilised  man  that  even  the  shattering 
sound  of  the  shells  came  to  be  reckoned  a  less  evil  than 
the  mud  of  their  burrowings,  and  the  loathsome  afflic- 
tion of  the  lice  that  preyed  upon  their  bodies. 

In  such  circumstances  of  horror  and  disgust  the 
clean  youth  of  England  endured  the  most  searching 
and  terrible  ordeal  to  which  the  human  mind  has  ever 
been  subjected  in  the  whole  history  of  the  world,  not  for 
a  week,  not  for  a  month,  but  for  years. 

What  was  it  that  held  them  to  their  posts?  "Men 
who  never  reasoned  before  are  turning  their  minds  to 
consider  the  cause  for  which  their  continued  endurance 
is  demanded."  We  may  be  sure  that  not  many  young 
Englishmen  were  deluded  by  the  politician's  promise  of 
a  new  England  fit  for  heroes  to  live  in.  War  had  dis- 
posed them  to  be  cynical.    They  had  no  illusions. 


6  THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

Their  reasons  were  occupied  with  far  other  thoughts 
than  those  which  lend  themselves  so  easily  to  political 
rhetoric.  How  had  this  horrible  thing  come  to  pass? 
What  had  the  older  people  been  doing  to  allow  such  a 
calamity  to  occur?  Was  there  any  escape  from  this 
beastliness? 

The  answer  to  that  last  question  was  universal  in  the 
armies  of  the  liberal  nations :  No  escape  till  Prussianism 
is  destroyed. 

This  feeling  was  instinctive,  rather  than  rational, 
but  out  of  it,  as  the  call  for  endurance  continued  into 
the  terrible  spring  of  191 8,  grew  a  discussion  which 
enabled  the  thoughtful  English  soldier  to  realise  that  he 
was,  in  sober  truth  and  in  the  plainest  prose,  a  spiritual 
warrior. 

Men  discussed  however  crudely  the  three  doctrines 
which  Mr.  Alfred  Zimmern  set  out  so  admirably  in 
the  pages  of  The  Round  Table  —  the  doctrine  of 
Prussianism,  the  doctrine  of  Bolshevism,  and  the 
doctrine  of  the  Commonwealth.  They  examined 
these  doctrines  and  came  to  a  rough  conclusion 
about  them.  Prussianism  meant  political  slavery; 
Bolshevism  meant  economic  slavery;  England,  with 
all  its  faults,  meant  personal  freedom.  It  was  worth 
holding  out. 

With  this  endurance  of  our  soldiers  never  absent 
from  our  thoughts,  let  ustexamine  these  Three  Doctrines 
as  they  are  now  presented  to  us  by  Mr.  Alfred  Zimmern 


PRINCIPLES  OF  THE  COMMONWEALTH    7 

in  the  collection  of  his  essays  entitled  Nationality  and 
Government. 1 

Prussianism,  he  reminds  us,  is  no  new  thing.  "You 
know  as  well  as  we  do,"  said  the  Athenians  in  416  B.C. 
to  the  representatives  of  a  small  people  of  their  day, 
"that  right,  as  the  world  goes,  is  only  in  question 
between  equals  in  power,  while  the  strong  do  what  they 
can,  and  the  weak  suffer  what  they  must."  Frederick 
the  Great,  in  the  war  of  the  Pragmatic  Sanction,  was 
no  innovator;  how  much  less  was  Bethmann-Hollweg 
original  when  he  made  light  of  treaties  and  declared 
that  necessity  had  no  law. 

Prussianism  is  a  science  of  government  which  refuses 
any  relation  with  ethics.  Even  as  a  clever  Irishman 
in  the  eighties  declared  that  art  has  no  connection  with 
morals,  arguing  a  fallacious  thesis  so  brilliantly  that  he 
deceived  even  many  just  people,  so  the  philosophers, 
historians,  statesmen,  yes,  and  even  in  our  day  the  very 
moralists  of  Germany,  argue  that  government  has  no 
concern  with  morals. 

They  remind  us  of  the  simple  person  who  inquired 
concerning  the  Siamese  twins  whether  they  were 
brothers. 

Manifestly,  if  man  is  a  moral  being,  he  must  be 
moral  in  all  his  actions.  He  cannot  be  a  moral  indi- 
vidual, and  an  immoral  official,  or  an  immoral  artist, 
or  an  immoral  tradesman.    Morality,  that  is  to  say, 

1  Nationality  and  Government,  by  Alfred  Zimmern. 


8  THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

must  be  of  the  very  stuff  and  texture  of  his  being,  not  a 
decoration  for  special  occasions,  or  a  black  coat  for 
Sunday;  it  must  be  the  soul  of  the  man  himself.  The 
German  statesman,  we  may  be  sure,  would  complain  if 
his  butcher  cheated  him,  and  would  not  listen  to  the 
butcher's  argument  that  butchery  has  nothing  to  do 
with  ethics.  So  too,  one  imagines,  the  immoral  artist 
would  not  be  satisfied  by  the  excuse  of  the  solicitor  who 
had  embezzled  his  money  that  the  legal  profession  has 
no  connection  with  ethics. 

But  this  is  to  argue  with  absurdity. 

Prussianism,  nevertheless,  in  spite  of  its  manifest 
absurdity,  has  a  philosophical  foundation.  It  holds  that 
human  nature  is  not  to  be  trusted,  that  man  is  born  a 
slave  to  impulses  and  caprices  which  would  assuredly 
ruin  him  but  for  the  interference  and  discipline  of  an 
iron  authority.  It  sets  up  that  Authority — a  ma- 
chine which  takes  feeble  and  defenceless  humanity 
into  its  cogs  —  and  hammers  that  dangerous  raw 
material  into  the  disciplined  man-power  of  a  mighty 
State. 

The  Prussian  soldier  endured  all  the  horrors  endured 
by  the  British  soldier,  and  truly  fought  with  a  courage 
which  could  not  be  excelled;  but  his  discipline  and 
courage  were  manufactured  for  him  by  a  System  which 
uses  the  slave-owner's  instrument  of  Rightfulness  and 
directs  itself  to  human  fear. 

Prussianism,  then,  is  Authority.    But  of  what  nature 


PRINCIPLES  OF  THE  COMMONWEALTH    9 

is  that  Authority?  It  is  the  Authority  of  a  Material- 
ism which  denies  morality,  the  Authority  of  National- 
ism, Self-Assertion,  Conquest,  and  Brutality.  To  the 
Prussian  the  individual  has  neither  dignity  nor  rights 
outside  his  State'.  The  State  is  everything;  the  in- 
dividual is  its  slave.  But  the  individual,  in  order  to 
serve  the  State,  must  not  be  neglected — he  must  be 
cultivated  and  equipped  for  the  discharge  of  his  duties. 
Hence  Prussianism  has  taken  the  great  and  sacred 
weapon  of  knowledge,  and  made  it  serve  an  evil  purpose. 
The  people  of  Germany  are  educated  and  trained  as 
no  other  people  in  the  world.  Mentally  they  have 
no  superiors.  But  in  character  they  are  inferior  to  the 
least  of  the  nations,  and  the  worst  of  them  are  on  a  level 
with  savages.  It  is  not  Authority  that  is  responsible 
for  this  mass  destruction,  but  the  nature  of  the  Au- 
thority. Prussianism  is  Machinery.  It  is  brain,  not 
character.     It  is  the  State,  not  Man. 

Bolshevism,  as  Mr.  Zimmern  says,  is  akin  to 
Prussianism.  It  is  a  religion  founded  in  violence, 
and  inspired  by  contempt  of  individual  freedom.  It 
distrusts  the  human  race;  it  hates  the  human  soul. 
By  terror  and  by  ruthless  force,  humanity  is  to  be 
shackled  to  the  tumbril  of  an  economic  theory.  It 
is  not  a  new  thing;  it  is  as  old  as  slavery.  Mr.  Ber- 
trand  Russell,  in  the  ablest  book  yet  published  on  the 
Russian  Revolution,  and  the  most  persuasive  because 
the  most  honest,  outspoken,  and  courageous,  shows  to 


io  THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

all  those  who  have  eyes  to  see  that  beneath  the  verbiage 
of  Lenin  and  beneath  the  communistic  mask  of  Trotsky 
there  is  in  truth  nothing  more  original  than  the  hideous 
features  of  despotism  and  tyranny. 

The  Englishman  sees  with  clearness  that  neither  the 
doctrine  of  Prussianism  nor  the  doctrine  of  Bolshevism 
squares  with  his  inherent  notions  of  the  purposes  of 
existence.  He  has  freedom  in  his  blood,  and  a  long 
tradition  of  common  sense  in  his  mind.  England  by  no 
means  fulfils  at  present  his  ideal  of  a  commonwealth, 
but  it  is  on  the  right  road,  a  road  at  any  rate  which 
leads  onward,  not  a  side  turning  which  ends  in  a  cul-de- 
sac.  He  prefers  to  march  onward  as  a  free  man  rather 
than  to  find  himself  trapped  by  a  tyranny.  Prussianism 
is  not  yet  destroyed.  It  has  its  votaries  in  this  country, 
just  as  Bolshevism  has ;  and  for  the  next  few  years  the 
conflict  between  these  two  doctrines  and  the  doctrine  of 
the  Commonwealth  will  be  fought  out  in  discussions  of 
various  kinds  on  English  soil.  It  is  a  good  thing  that 
this  should  be  so,  for  truth  has  no  fear  of  an  open  conflict 
with  error. 

Let  us  see  how  the  doctrine  of  the  Commonwealth, 
the  English  principle,  compares  with  these  two  doctrines 
which  are  so  similar  in  spirit  and  both  of  which  are  so 
fatal  to  the  higher  life  of  the  human  race. 

Mr.  Zimmern,  comparing  our  methods  of  education 
with  the  German,  quotes  the  opening  words  of  the 
English  Code: 


PRINCIPLES  OF  THE  COMMONWEALTH    n 

The  purpose  of  the  Public  Elementary  School  is  to 
form  and  strengthen  the  character  and  to  develop  the 
intelligence  of  the  children  entrusted  to  it. 

First  character,  then  intelligence.  This  order  goes  to 
the  very  heart  of  the  difference  between  the  principle 
of  Prussianism  and  the  principle  of  the  Commonwealth. 

The  Prussian  system  is  unsatisfactory,  firstly,  because 
it  confuses  external  discipline  with  self-control;  secondly, 
because  it  confuses  regimentation  with  corporate  spirit; 
thirdly,  because  it  conceives  the  nation's  duty  in  terms  of 
"culture"  rather  than  of  character. 

"Our  British  tendency,"  continues  Mr.  Zimmern, 
"is  to  develop  habits  of  service  and  responsibility 
through  a  devotion  to  smaller  and  more  intimate 
associations,  to  build  on  a  foundation  of  lesser  loyalties 
and  duties.  We  do  not  conceive  it  to  be  the  function 
of  the  school  to  teach  patriotism  or  to  teach  fellowship. 

Rather  we  hold  that  good  education  is  fellowship,  is 
citizenship,  in  the  deepest  meaning  of  those  words.  .  .  . 
A  school,  a  ship,  a  club,  a  Trade  Union,  any  free  associa- 
tion of  Englishmen,  is  all  England  in  miniature." 

With  us,  he  points  out,  civilisation  stands  for  neither 
language  nor  culture  nor  anything  intellectual  at  all. 
"It  stands  for  something  moral  and  social  and  political" : 

It  means,  in  the  first  place,  the  establishment  and 
enforcement  of  the  Rule  of  Law,  as  against  anarchy 
on  the  one  hand  and  tyranny  on  the  other;  and  secondly, 
on  the  basis  of  order  and  justice,  the  task  of  making  men 


12  THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

fit  for  free  institutions,  the  work  of  guiding  and  training 
them  to  recognise  the  obligations  of  citizenship,  to  sub- 
ordinate their  own  personal  interests  or  inclinations  to  the 
common  welfare,  the  "commonwealth." 

In  a  word  it  means  Character,  not  a  national  char- 
acter, but  an  individual  moral  character.  Our  com- 
mon sense  has  taught  us  that  the  most  important  thing 
about  a  man  is  his  verity.  We  are  not  to  be  put  off  by 
smooth  speeches  or  an  imposing  manner;  we  go  to  the 
heart  of  things  and  ask  what  is  the  character  of  this  man 
who  would  traffic  with  us  or  sit  down  with  our  family  at 
dinner.  Is  he  a  man  to  be  trusted?  Is  he  straight?  Is 
he  clean  ?    Or  is  he  a  humbug,  a  rogue ,  and  a  hypocrite  ? 

Mr.  Chesterton,  with  his  robust  love  of  beer  and 
incense,  has  attempted  to  make  light  of  the  age  of 
the  Puritans;  but  he  is  obliged  to  confess  that  in  the 
simpler  Puritans  there  was  a  "ring  of  real  republican 
virtue,"  and  "a  defiance  of  tyrants,"  and  also,  which  is 
the  greatest  of  all  his  own  affirmations,  "an  assertion 
of  human  dignity . "  Is  it  not  plain  to  us,  whatever  their 
theological  extravagances  may  have  been,  that  because 
their  insistence  was  on  moral  character  these  men  were 
the  essential  English  of  that  period?  In  comparison 
with  them,  surely  the  courtiers  and  fops  who  surrounded 
Charles  II  were  as  little  English  as  the  Euphuists 
of  Elizabethan  times  or  the  alien  financiers  of  our 
present  Belgravia. 

The  Puritan's  face  was  set  against  licence.      He 


PRINCIPLES  OF  THE  COMMONWEALTH    13 

hated  anything  that  degraded  the  human  spirit.  His 
moral  emphasis  was  on  the  inner  life — the  inward  verity 
of  the  individual.  He  raised  morality  from  a  matter  of 
taste  to  a  rule  of  life,  to  a  test  of  value.  He  was  for 
honesty,  not  duplicity;  for  worth,  not  pretentiousness; 
for  chastity,  not  beastliness;  for  the  home,  not  the 
brothel;  for  manliness,  not  effeminacy.  If  he  lacked 
Mr.  Chesterton's  passion  for  symbolism,  did  he  not  also 
lack  the  treachery  of  Charles  I,  the  licentiousness  of 
Charles  II  ?  Was  there  not  essential  Englishness  in  the 
challenge  of  Richard  Sibbes:  "What  are  we  to  think  of 
those  who  would  bring  light  and  darkness,  Christ  and 
Anti-Christ,  the  Ark  and  Dagon  together,  that  would 
reconcile  us  as  if  it  were  no  great  matter?"  We  owe 
something  to  the  brilliant  wit  of  Mr.  Chesterton,  but 
how  much  more  to  the  moral  earnestness  of  Milton. 

It  was  the  Puritan  who  carried  English  character 
across  the  Atlantic,  and  founded  the  mightiest  republic 
the  world  has  known — a  republic  still  in  its  infancy,  but, 
with  England,  the  world's  greatest  bulwark  at  this  hour 
against  tyranny  of  every  kind,  whether  the  tyranny  of 
the  priest,  the  monarch,  or  the  communist.  In  the 
light  of  that  tremendous  achievement,  is  it  not  just  to 
say  that  the  Calvinism  of  which  Mr.  Chesterton  makes 
so  much  was  merely  the  theological  accident  of  the  time, 
and  that  the  true  passion  of  the  Puritan,  distinguishing 
him  from  the  false  and  traitorous  English  of  that  day, 
and  enabling  him  to  do  this  mighty  work  in  America, 


14  THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

was  the  passion  for  liberty,  for  moral  earnestness, 
for  the  dignity  of  the  individual? 

Prussianism  rests,  as  Bismarck,  a  moderate  man, 
asserted  in  memorable  words,  on  the  divine  right  of 
the  King  of  Prussia.  Has  Mr.  Chesterton,  who  hates 
Prussianism,  forgotten  that  James  I  of  England  wrote 
to  his  son,  afterwards  Charles  I,  bidding  him  remember, 
"God  made  you  a  little  God,  to  sit  on  His  Throne,  and 
rule  over  men."  Against  that  doctrine  the  Puritan 
first  protested  and  then  fought,  so  saving  England  from 
a  tyranny  which  would  infallibly  have  destroyed  her 
moral  character. 

It  was  the  true  descendant  of  this  Puritan,  we  may 
say  faithfully,  who  defeated  the  Prussian  tyranny,  for 
the  ranks  of  the  British  Army  were  filled  with  millions 
of  volunteers  who  fought  for  the  principle  of  the  Com- 
monwealth, and  who  endured  the  incredible  agony  of 
that  long  conflict  because  they  hated  despotism,  and  felt 
in  their  English  blood  something  that  would  not  bow  to 
an  Authority  against  which  their  moral  nature  revolted. 

If  the  record  of  the  British  Commonwealth  under 
the  stress  of  war  (wrote  Mr.  Zimmern)  is  less  resounding 
than  the  martial  bulletins  of  Prussia,  less  stirring  and 
fantastic  than  the  sweeping  edicts  of  the  revolution,  if  its 
plans  and  achievements  are  dressed  in  the  sober  tints  of 
ordinary  life,  it  is  because  the  Commonwealth  exists  not 
to  gratify  a  conqueror's  ambition  or  to  demonstrate  or 
refute  a  dreamer's  doctrine,  but  to  enable  its  citizens  to 
grow  to  the  full  stature  of  their  moral  being. 


PRINCIPLES  OF  THE  COMMONWEALTH    15 

Not  by  the  triumphs  of  the  battlefield  and  the  forum 
will  the  Commonwealth  seek  to  be  justified,  but  by  the 
character  and  the  influence,  the  noble  example  and  the  in- 
spiring memory  of  its  men  and  women. 

That  is  to  say,  the  meaning  of  England  is  neither 
Imperialism  nor  State  Slavery,  but  Moral  Character. 
She  is  the  very  antithesis  of  Prussianism,  and  the  very 
antipodes  of  Bolshevism.  Her  strength,  power,  and 
dominion  lie  in  no  machinery  of  State,  but  in  the  moral 
character  of  her  individual  citizens. 

These  things  I  have  set  down  in  order  that  the  reader 
may  carry  in  his  mind  a  clear  idea  of  the  meaning 
of  England  as  he  proceeds  to  examine  her  social  docu- 
ments of  the  present  hour. 

England,  still  far  short  of  her  ideal,  stands  in  a  world  of 
many  diverse  doctrines,  and  a  world  at  many  different 
levels  of  civilisation,  for  Liberty  and  Character.  She 
means  that  human  nature  is  a  great  thing,  not  a  slavish 
thing,  a  potentiality,  at  any  rate,  which  may  be  edu- 
cated in  self-control,  till  it  is  fit  to  stand  on  its  own  feet 
against  all  the  assaults  of  the  world,  the  flesh,  and  the 
devil.  She  utters  an  Everlasting  No  to  the  tyrant  who 
would  substitute  external  discipline  for  self-control, 
regimentation  for  corporate  spirit,  and  "culture" 
for  character.  She  utters  this  Everlasting  No  to 
tyrants  of  every  kind,  whether  it  be  the  Prussian  who 
would  make  the  citizen  exist  for  the  State,  or  the  Bol- 
shevist who  would  make  the  worker  exist  for  Economics. 


16  THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

And  from  her  heart  of  hearts  she  utters  an  Everlasting 
Yea  to  the  divine  demand  of  religion  for  truth  in  the 
inward  parts. 

She  stands,  then,  for  something  infinitely  great. 
It  is  vital  to  the  higher  life  of  the  human  race  that 
she  should  continue  to  stand  for  this  great  thing,  since 
tyranny  never  sleeps,  and  the  victory  for  Freedom  will 
not  be  won  till  all  nations  have  acquired  the  moral 
character  which  renders  liberty  a  power  and  not  a 
danger. 

The  question  we  now  have  to  ask  ourselves  is  whether 
those  people  in  England  who  set  the  nation  its  standards 
in  morals  and  manners  are  helping  us  to  stand  for  this 
great  thing,  are  strengthening  our  moral  fibres  and 
quickening  our  spiritual  ideals,  or  whether  they  are 
leading  the  nation  into  an  ambush  where  tyranny  waits 
to  strike  another  blow  at  his  chief  enemy. 

It  is  not  a  question,  I  beg  the  reader  to  remember, 
whether  Fashion  is  worse  than  it  was,  or  better;  it 
is  a  question  whether  it  is  a  help  or  a  hindrance,  whether 
it  is  adequate  to  the  present  crisis  in  the  fortunes  of 
civilisation. 


F.  A.  Swaine 


LADY    HARROWBY 


CHAPTER  II 

COLONEL  REPINGTON'S   DIARIES 

We  have  neither  immediate  nor  remote  aims,  and  in  our  soul 
there  is  a  great  empty  space. — Anton  Tchehov. 

Wilhelm  von  Humboldt,  one  of  the  most  beautiful  souls  that 
have  ever  existed,  used  to  say  that  one's  business  in  life  was 
first  to  perfect  oneself  by  all  the  means  in  one's  power,  and 
secondly  to  try  to  create  in  the  world  around  one  an  aristocracy, 
the  most  numerous  that  one  possibly  could,  of  talents  and 
characters. — Matthew  Arnold. 

In  order  to  avoid  any  charge  of  vagueness  or  extrava- 
gance, which  is  the  usual  defence  in  matters  of  this 
nature,  I  propose  to  test  Fashionable  Society  only  by  its 
own  documents.  The  documents  I  shall  use  are  the 
recent  published  work  of  fashionable  people,  and  give  us 
valuable  information  concerning  a  great  number  of 
other  fashionable  people.  They  have  been  published 
without  shame,  have  achieved  a  considerable  popular- 
ity, and  are  acknowledged  by  the  best  judges  to  be 
thoroughly  indiscreet — that  is  to  say,  truthful  but 
unwise. 

There  shall  be  no  opportunity  for  the  timorous  syco- 
2  17 


18  THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

phant  of  Fashion  to  dismiss  my  indictment  as  any  mere 
essay  in  vulgar  sensationalism.  I  look  to  startle  people ; 
I  hope  to  rouse  anger  and  indignation  among  the  solid 
central  classes  of  England ;  but  the  means  I  shall  employ 
to  that  end  are  no  fabrications  of  my  own,  no  exagger- 
ations of  a  gossip's  chatter,  no  scraps  and  pickings  from 
the  refuse  heaps  of  scandal;  they  are  the  signed  and 
written  word  of  people  who  live  at  the  very  centre  of 
fashionable  life  and  who  are  wholly  above  suspicion  as 
enemies  of  the  social  order. 

Since  I  earnestly  desire  the  reader  to  keep  the  War  in 
his  mind,  and  to  remember  my  suggestion  that  our  sol- 
diers endured  the  inexpressible  torture  of  that  ordeal 
for  the  sake  of  a  great  moral,  social,  and  political  ideal — 
the  ideal  of  the  British  Commonwealth — we  will  begin 
with  Colonel  Charles  a  Court  Repington,  C.M.G.,  Com- 
mander of  the  Order  of  Leopold,  Officer  of  the  Legion 
of  Honour,  and  author  of  The  First  World  War. * 

Colonel  Repington  is  a  man  of  intellect — an  ad- 
mirable and  finished  specimen  of  the  intellectual  man 
of  the  world.  His  vanity,  which  leaves  Malvolio  at 
the  post,  must  not  blind  us  to  the  reality  of  his  ser- 
vices during  the  War.  He  rendered  this  country  very 
considerable  services,  for  which  we  must  ever  pay 
him  the  tribute  of  a  profound  gratitude.  His  military 
knowledge,  which  is  of  a  high  order,  his  manners,  which 
can  be  exceedingly  engaging,  and  his  courage,  which  is 

1  The  First  World  War. 


COLONEL  REPINGTON'S  DIARIES         19 

proof  against  the  airs  and  tempers  of  men  in  high  places, 
faithfully  and  persistently  served  this  country  and  this 
country's  allies  at  every  crisis  in  the  War.  I  think 
I  am  right  in  saying  that  only  in  one  military  particular 
was  his  judgment  ever  at  fault,  and  that  never  once  did 
he  consult  his  own  leisure  or  convenience  when  a  long 
and  racking  journey,  with  a  difficult  diplomatic  mission 
at  the  end  of  it,  was  likely  to  retrieve  the  mistakes  of 
our  politicians  and  serve  the  safety  of  our  troops. 

Colonel  Repington's  two  volumes  are  the  contents 
of  his  diaries  from  1914^0  1918.  At  the  outbreak  of 
War  he  was  fifty-six  years  of  age,  had  seen  service 
in  Afghanistan,  Burma,  Egypt,  and  South  Africa,  had 
served  as  military  attache  in  Belgium  and  Holland, 
was  military  correspondent  to  The  Times,  a  popular 
figure  in  the  drawing-rooms  of  London  and  Paris,  and  a 
man  whose  opinion  on  military  subjects  was  listened  to 
with  respect  by  many  of  our  greatest  soldiers  and  some 
of  our  most  intellectual  statesmen. 

In  him  we  see  the  product  of  all  the  social  advan- 
tages. Born  of  the  aristocracy,  educated  at  Eton, 
always  associating  on  terms  of  the  friendliest  intimacy 
with  the  great  and  powerful,  a  traveller  who  would  have 
astonished  the  Elizabethans,  an  excellent  linguist,  a 
man  of  taste  and  judgment,  a  sportsman  in  the  best 
English  sense  of  that  word,  and  a  sincere  lover  of  the 
beautiful,  Colonel  Repington  comes  before  us  with 
every  hall-mark  of  aristocratic  genuineness,  so  blest 


20  THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

by  the  gods,  for  he  is  a  singularly  handsome  person,  that 
a  former  generation  might  have  taken  him  for  the  ideal 
hero  of  a  Ouida  novel. 

Might  we  not  reasonably  expect  to  find,  then,  in  the 
war  diaries  of  a  man  so  blest  and  so  circumstanced,  a 
spirit  that  would  help  us  to  penetrate  to  the  heart  of 
that  moral  idealism  which  held  our  soldiers  to  their 
post?  If  Colonel  Repington  does  not  know  what 
England  stood  for  in  the  War,  how  shall  the  man  know 
who  has  read  only  the  elements  of  history,  and  since 
that  day  has  been  too  busy  earning  his  bread  to  culti- 
vate his  mind?  And  if  Colonel  Repington  does  know 
what  England  stood  for  in  that  conflict,  should  not  the 
diaries  he  filled  during  those  dreadful  years  tell  us  as  few 
other  documents  of  the  time  could  do  how  the  great 
ideal  of  England  sustained  English  aristocracy  through 
that  long  conflict  and  led  it  to  such  shining  sacrifices 
as  made  that  ideal  manifest  to  all  the  world? 

I  do  not  think  it  is  unreasonable  to  expect  such  a 
spirit  in  these  diaries.  The  times  were  tremendous. 
Civilisation,  as  the  noblest  minds  of  the  human  race 
have  ever  understood  that  term,  was  in  peril.  There 
were  crises  when  it  seemed  that  nothing  could  save 
the  young  liberalism  of  Europe.  For  months  many 
abandoned  hope  that  Prussian  despotism,  Prussian 
materialism,  Prussian  savagery,  could  even  be  held, 
much  less  overthrown.  Think  what  that  meant;  con- 
trol was  conquering — self-control  was  fighting  with  its 


COLONEL  REPINGTON'S  DIARIES        21 

back  to  the  wall.  An  iron  hand  was  closing  over  the 
soul  of  freedom.  A  grasp  of  slavery  like  that  which 
now  holds  Russia  in  its  ruthless  clutches  was  tightening 
round  the  writhing  body  of  this  world's  liberty.  And 
during  those  months  of  almost  unendurable  suspense 
the  flower  of  England's  youth  was  bleeding  to  death  in 
the  most  frightful  shambles  that  even  a  maniac  could 
imagine.  It  was  no  nightmare.  The  thing  was  real. 
It  was  not  the  campaign  of  Cassar,  Charlemagne,  Fred- 
erick, or  Napoleon;  it  was  not  a  campaign  far  off  and 
distant;  it  was  a  campaign  at  our  very  door;  and  that 
battered  door  was  being  defended  by  our  brothers  and 
our  sons.  Not  by  the  hundred,  or  by  the  thousand,  or 
by  the  score  of  thousands,  but  by  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands; yes,  and  in  the  end  by  millions,  men  were  being 
killed,  mutilated,  blinded,  and  driven  mad,  then,  at  that 
moment,  in  those  very  days,  when  Colonel  Repington 
was  filling  his  diaries. 

Most  people  felt  this  agony  in  their  blood.  It  was 
something  from  which  there  was  no  escape.  It  was  as 
close  to  life  as  the  skin  to  the  body.  To  know  that 
freedom  was  in  peril,  and  that  it  was  being  bloodily  and 
awfully  defended  by  boys  fresh  from  school,  was  a  men- 
tal experience  which  could  not  be  dislodged.  To  shake 
off  the  intolerable  burden  of  that  thought  for  a  few 
moments  was  possible ;  diversion  was  even  necessary  to 
health ;  it  was  right,  it  was  just ;  but  to  wish  to  forget  it 
altogether,  this  was  criminal;  and  to  write  about  the 


22  THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

War  without  the  consecration  of  that  thought  always  in 
the  mind,  to  make  the  War  the  theme  of  two  volumes, 
and  never  once  write  one  single  word  suggesting  even  a 
consciousness  of  that  holy  thought,  the  Cause  for  which 
our  men  were  fighting,  this,  until  I  read  Colonel  Reping- 
ton's  work,  I  should  have  said  was  impossible. 

To  read  these  volumes  is  to  discover  the  unthinkable 
and  the  impossible.  Nowhere  will  you  find  a  period 
or  a  sentence  of  which  you  could  say,  "There!  that  is 
what  we  fought  for!"  The  Cause  finds  no  expression. 
There  is  no  penetration  to  the  spiritual  reality  of  the 
conflict.  It  never  seems  to  have  occurred  to  the  author 
that  the  soldier  in  the  trenches  might  have  preferred 
"the  trivial  detail  of  daily  happiness"  to  War,  but  for 
something  that  held  him  there  like  a  priest  at  the  altar. 

Colonel  Repington  met  everybody.  He  sets  down  in 
his  diary  what  he  said  to  those  great  people,  and  also 
what  the  great  people  said  to  him.  They  were  our 
greatest,  and  apparently  not  one  word  was  uttered 
which  ever  glanced  below  the  surface.  A  Frenchman 
might  read  this  book  and  exclaim  of  us,  "What  cynics ! " 
or  a  German,  and  say,  "What  hypocrites!"  or  an  edu- 
cated Indian,  and  say,  "What  animals!"  No  one 
reading  this  book  would  understand  that  England  was 
fighting  for  the  greatest  political  ideal  which  has  ever 
risen  from  the  furnace  of  slavery,  and  that  her  sons 
were  offering  their  lives  in  no  less  a  cause  than  the 
higher  life  of  the  human  race. 


COLONEL  REPINGTON'S  DIARIES        23 

Never  was  book  written  with  greater  omission. 
Bagehot  censured  Scott  for  the  entire  omission  from  his 
novels  of  an  "element  which  is  so  characteristic  of  life," 
religion;  but  who  could  write  a  book  about  the  First 
World  War  and  omit  the  cause  which,  if  challenged  by  a 
Second,  will  surely  perish?  It  is  as  if  the  armies  of  the 
world  were  righting  for  a  bone. 

But  if  we  censure  Colonel  Repington  for  this  grave 
omission,  what  must  we  say  of  the  incidents,  the  anec- 
dotes, the  conversations,  and  the  flippancies  which 
crowd  his  two  volumes  from  cover  to  cover?  Take,  for 
example,  this  entry  in  the  diaries  under  the  head  "The 
Outlook  for  1916": 

Lunched  in  Belgrave  Square.  Lady  Paget,  Prince 
and  Princess  Victor  Napoleon,  Mrs.  Duggan,  Wolkoff, 
and  Max  Muller,  of  the  Foreign  Office.  The  Princess 
very  nicely  dressed,  and  charming  as  usual.  Mrs.  Dug- 
gan was  in  the  most  attractive  widow's  weeds  imaginable. 
Callaud  (sic)  of  Paris  makes  a  speciality  of  mourning  for 
war  widows  apparently.  These  particular  weeds  in- 
cluded a  very  pretty  hat  in  crape,  with  a  veil  hanging 
down  behind,  or  rather  streamers,  and  a  narrow  band  of 
white  crape  round  the  hat  next  her  face,  and  also  under 
her  chin.  The  dress  had  a  white  waistcoat  of  tulle,  and 
open  at  the  neck,  in  fact  she  looked  like  a  fascinating  nun. 
Laszlo  has  painted  her  in  this  dress. 

One  is  not  only  shocked  by  such  an  entry,  but 
filled  with  a  dull  nausea.  Something  is  here  degraded 
which,  for  most  of  us,  has  the  elements  of  sanctity. 


24  THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

Such  a  spirit  is  here  forced  before  our  attention  as 
would  admit  the  cinematograph  to  the  death-chamber. 
Apparently,  Colonel  Repington  and  his  friends  were 
occasionally  visited  by  the  disturbing  thought  that  their 
lives  were  scarcely  in  harmony  with  the  tragic  character 
of  the  times.  On  one  occasion  at  least  this  intrusive 
thought  was  faced  and  challenged  with  a  characteristic 
logic : 

Lady  Ridley  and  I  discussed  what  posterity  would 
think  of  us  in  England.  We  agreed  that  we  should  be 
considered  rather  callous  to  go  on  with  our  usual  life 
when  we  were  reading  of  3,000  and  4,000  casualties  a  day. 
But  she  said  that  people  could  not  keep  themselves  ele- 
vated permanently  on  some  plane  above  the  normal,  and 
she  supposed  that  things  round  us  explained  the  French 
Revolution  and  the  behaviour  of  the  French  nobility. 

This  entry,  in  spite  of  its  brittle  fallacy,  is  valuable. 
It  acts  as  a  finger-post  to  "the  usual  life  "  which  Fashion 
considers  normal.  In  the  next  chapter  we  will  follow 
that  direction  and  see  where  it  leads  us. 

For  the  moment,  apologising  to  the  intelligent  reader 
for  wasting  his  time,  I  would  point  out  to  those  who 
agree  with  Lady  Ridley  that  her  excuse  is  on  all  fours 
with  the  excuse  made  by  the  most  degraded  people  in 
our  social  hotch-potch  for  their  horrible  morals  and  their 
disgusting  manners. 

The  prostitute  does  not  think  of  herself  as  abnormal ; 
on  the  contrary,  she  regards  modesty  and  chastity  as 


COLONEL  REPINGTON'S  DIARIES        25 

unnatural  elevations  above  the  plane  of  the  normal. 
The  crowd  of  rascals  and  scoundrels  who  infest  the  Turf 
do  not  think  of  themselves  as  "rather  callous"  or  as 
savages  utterly  unfit  for  civilisation;  on  the  contrary, 
they  regard  honesty,  straight  dealing,  and  the  most 
elementary  self-sacrifice  as  elevations  fantastically  and 
laughably  above  the  plane  of  the  normal. 

If  "the  normal"  is  to  be  at  the  sport  of  individual 
caprice,  the  life  of  a  community  can  never  escape  from 
chaos.  There  must  be  standards.  There  must  be 
criteria.  The  tendency  to  regard  loyalty  to  one's  lower 
nature  as  honesty,  and  all  moral  strivings  to  obey  the 
whispers  of  one's  higher  nature  as  hyprocrisy,  is  fatal 
to  development,  fatal  to  order.  The  aim  must  be  at 
perfection.  The  standards  of  humanity  must  be  de- 
livered into  our  hands  by  the  highest. 

How  disastrously  any  other  principle  works  may 
be  seen  in  this  extract  from  Colonel  Repington's  diary 
for  February  26,  1918: 

Lady  Randolph  and  I  agree  that  if  we  began  again 
at  17  we  should  do  the  same  as  we  had  done,  only  more  so. 
Then  we  decided  that  we  could  not  have  done  more  so  if 
we  had  tried. 

The  manner  is  flippant,  but  the  spirit  is  unmistakable. 
It  is  the  fatal  spirit  of  self-satisfaction.  Beneath  all 
their  frivolity  and  trivial  persiflage,  these  people  are 
profoundly  convinced  of  superiority,    profoundly  un- 


26  THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

aware  of  unworthiness.  They  hive  no  idea  of  their  guilt. 
Their  privileges  appear  to  them  as  the  fruits  of  their 
merits,  and  their  merits  seem  to  them  so  unquestionable 
as  to  be  a  full  discharge  of  their  responsibilities.  They 
think  the  rest  of  mankind  should  be  grateful  to  them 
for  their  mere  existence.  That  horrible  creature  Lady 
Cardigan  speaks  of  someone  having  to  earn  her  living  as 
a  governess  "instead  of  enjoying  the  life  her  birth  and 
attractions  merited."  Noblesse  oblige.  As  the  tout  of 
the  race-course  laughs  at  the  tract  of  the  missionary, 
so  these  people  who  ought  to  quicken  the  nation's  sense 
of  its  duties,  and  who  ought  to  set  the  community  the 
highest  standards  of  moral  perfection,  laugh  at  such  an 
utterance  of  Matthew  Arnold:  "The  deeper  I  go  in 
my  own  consciousness,  and  the  more  simply  I  abandon 
myself  to  it,  the  more  it  seems  to  tell  me  that  I  have  no 
rights  at  all,  only  duties." 

But  conscience  is  the  least  obtrusive  of  visitors  in 
these  circles.  When  "the  normal"  is  being  fixed,  con- 
venience, not  conscience,  is  the  arbiter. 


CHAPTER  III 

SOME   GLIMPSES   OF  THE   NORMAL 

What  bothered  me  in  London  was  all  the  Clever  People 
going  wrong  with  such  Clever  Reasons  for  so  doing,  which  I 
couldn't  confute. — Edward  FitzGerald. 

Each  London  season  is  as  like  the  past  as  this  year's  turnip 
crop  is  like  last.  .  .  .  One  wearies  of  the  energetic  monotony 
which  teaches  one  nothing  and  loses  its  power  to  amuse. — J.  A. 
Froude. 

With  so  admirable  a  guide  for  our  purpose  as  the 
famous  and  intellectual  Colonel  Repington,  we  will 
set  out  to  discover  the  normal  life  of  fashionable  people. 
That  is  to  say,  we  will  listen  to  the  voice  of  Fashion 
while  she  tells  us  what  she  likes  to  talk  about  at  her 
meals,  what  she  considers  amusing,  what  interests  her 
in  life,  what  she  thinks  of  all  those  great  subjects  which 
occupy  the  thoughts  of  serious  men,  and  what  spirit 
animates  her  social  round. 

I  am  not  seeking  to  fasten  a  charge  of  iniquity  on 
Fashion,  but  to  discover  its  atmosphere. 

In  perusing  these  following  extracts  from  Colonel 
Repington's  diaries,  I  would  remind  the  reader  that 

27 


28  THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

only  on  the  rarest  occasions  does  the  name  of  a  New 
Rich  person  occur  in  those  pages;  therefore  he  may  be 
assured  in  his  mind  that  he  is  reading  of  those  who  by 
birth,  tradition,  and  all  the  advantages  of  education  are 
entitled  to  set  the  nation  its  moral  and  social  standards : 

We  all  agreed  upon  the  desirability  of  cheering  up 
and  lighting  up  London;  having  restaurant  cars  on  trains, 
holding  exhibitions,  and  emulating  the  French  coolness, 
instead  of  remaining  gloomy  in  sackcloth  and  ashes  as 
The  Times  has  advocated.  They  want  me  to  move  in 
the  matter.  Mrs.  Duggan  looking  very  pretty,  and  her 
mourning  is  growing  less. 

I  need  scarcely  interrupt  the  guidance  of  Colonel 
Repington  to  inform  the  reader  that  The  Times  did 
not  advocate  "sackcloth  and  ashes,"  but  I  would 
point  out  the  significance  of  that  playful  phrase,  since 
it  so  obviously  suggests  that  Fashion  regards  dignity 
and  decency  in  the  light  of  undertakers,  or,  as  the  slang 
of  the  day  has  it,  kill- joys.  This  dislike  of  anything 
in  the  nature  of  spiritual  dignity  or  intellectual  serious- 
ness is  a  marked  characteristic  of  fashionable  psychology. 
The  reader  will  encounter  this  spirit  in  many  of  the 
extracts  I  shall  make  from  the  documents  of  Fashion 
in  the  course  of  these  pages : 

We  discussed  some  lighter  subjects,  including  the 
Kaiser's  pet  ladies,  of  whom  he  seems  to  possess  types  in 
Norway,  Venice,  etc.,  as  well  as  in  Brussels.  The  P.M. 
(Mr.  Lloyd  George)  much  enjoyed  this  gossip,  and  his 
eyes  twinkled  as  he  listened  to  it. 


SOME  GLIMPSES  OF  THE  NORMAL       29 

The  following  entry  appears  under  the  date  Good 
Friday,  April  21,  igi6: 

We  had  tennis,  fishing,  walking,  bridge,  charades,  music 
and  games,  and  fooling  of  every  description.  .  .  .  We 
had  a  most  cheery  party,  and  were  all  very  friendly  and 
young.  A  capable  cook  and  a  good  cellar  did  no  harm. 
With  Ross,  Rumbold,  and  the  two  dancing  ladies  to  act 
for  us,  and  with  Wolkoff  at  the  piano,  the  evenings  passed 
very  pleasantly.     Ross  is  a  great  loss  to  low  comedy.  .  .  . 

We  had  forgathered  to  talk  German  politics,  but  got  on 
to  ladies  and  horses,  and  soon  forgot  all  about  the  Boches. 

We  discussed  the  vices  and  virtues  of  man  and  woman. 
Lady  R.  said  that  no  woman  ever  loved  a  good  man,  and 
Juliet  agreed,  saying  that  it  was  the  last  thing  that  gave 
any  satisfaction.  Lady  R.  said  that  man  had  terrible 
advantages  over  woman,  as  he  came  into  the  cradle  fully 
armed.  I  said  that  the  woman  did,  too,  but  I  was  howled 
down.  Lady  Cunard  thought  that  a  woman  ought  to 
have  romance  and  a  man  a  sense  of  humour,  and  then  we 
tried  to  define  what  a  sense  of  humour  was,  and  on  going 
round  the  table  we  found  that  everyone  thought  they 
had  it. 

Here  follows  one  of  the  most  amazing  entries  in 
Colonel  Repington's  diaries.  The  amazement  lies  in 
the  fact  that  the  remark  recorded  was  made  in  the 
presence  of  a  mother  and  her  sons : 

Dined  with  Belle  Herbert  and  her  two  boys,  Sidney 
and  Michael,  and  Juliet  Duff,  in  Carlton  House  Terrace. 
A  very  pleasant  evening.  They  screamed  over  my  story 
of  Robertson's  remark  that  he  and  I  could  no  more  afford 


30  THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

to  be  seen  walking  together  just  now  than  we  could  afford 
to  be  seen  walking  down  Regent  Street  with  a  whore. 

I  confess  that  while  I  am  fairly  used  to  a  rather 
brutal  vigour  of  language  among  certain  men  of  fashion, 
I  have  never  in  my  life  heard  such  an  expression  as 
this  in  the  company  of  women.  Nor  do  I  think  that 
"screaming"  is  a  usual  form  of  laughter  among  even 
fashionable  women. 

Here,  too,  is  an  amazing  story  to  be  told  in  the  circles 
of  refinement  and  culture : 

The  other  story  was  of  Harry  Higgins  and  a  famous 
beautiful  prima  donna.  Harry  was  trying  to  engage 
her  for  the  opera  and  she  held  out  for  £200  a  night. 
"But  we  only  want  you  to  sing,  you  know,"  rasped  out 
Harry  in  her  ear. 

"Ragging"  appears  from  time  to  time  in  these  sou- 
venirs oVenfance: 

A  very  cheery  evening.  We  dressed  up  in  the  hats 
from  the  crackers,  ragged  a  good  deal,  went  out  into  the 
square  at  midnight  to  hear  the  chimes,  and  then  back  to 
drink  an  excellent  punch  and  sing  "Auld  Lang  Syne." 

Some  good  tennis,  much  talk  and  much  bridge.  In 
the  evening  a  great  rag.  We  got  to  bed  about  3  a.m., 
and  the  next  night  was  almost  as  bad,  if  not  worse. 

"The  next  night"  was  Sunday. 

I  do  not  pretend  to  know  the  nature  of  the  "rags" 
which  are  mentioned  occasionally,  but  never  described, 


SOME  GLIMPSES  OF  THE  NORMAL       31 

in  these  pages.  Readers  of  Mr.  Michael  Sadleir's 
novel  Privilege  will  know  that  in  some  sets  at  any  rate 
they  take  a  very  horrible  form.  Mr.  Wilfrid  Blunt 
mentions  a  pretty  dreadful  incident  of  the  kind  in  My 
Diaries,  Part  II.,  that  extraordinary  work  which  more 
than  confirms  every  word  I  wrote  about  Mr.  Asquith 
and  Mr.  Arthur  Balfour  in  The  Mirrors  of  Downing 
Street.  But  I  prefer  to  think  that  the  rags  of  Colonel 
Repington  are  merely  foolish,  like  the  rags  in  a  very- 
exalted  circle,  where  pulling  out  the  ties  of  men  in  a  ball- 
room seems  to  afford  the  greatest  possible  amusement  to 
gentlemen  in  a  highly  responsible  position.  Horseplay 
is  the  chief  note  of  the  modern  rag.  Girls  are  chased 
about  a  house  by  young  men,  upstairs  and  downstairs, 
and  sometimes  come  in  for  such  a  clawing  as  quite  ruins 
their  garments.  There  are  minor  rags,  hardly  perhaps 
to  be  called  rags,  in  which  eccentricity  plays  the  chief 
part.  Colonel  Repington  speaks  of  a  house  occupied 
by  Mrs.  Asquith  at  Bognor,  which  could  hold  eight 
people,  but  into  which  Mrs.  Asquith  thought  nothing  of 
squeezing  eighteen ;  at  this  house  Lady  Diana  Manners 
came  to  stay,  and  insisted,  we  are  told,  on  midnight 
bathing. 

The  baths  have  a  fine  assortment  of  salts  and  ointments 
and  scented  waters  for  the  bathers  to  select  from.  This 
reminded  Mrs.  McKenna  of  Lord  D'Abernon,  who  says 
that  when  he  stays  with  a  Jew  he  always  pours  the  whole 
of  the  bath  salts  into  his  tub  as  a  protest  against  the 
Crucifixion. 


32  THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

We  discussed  Irvingites,  taxation,  tanks,  the  War 
generally,  and  other  matters,  Lady  C.  occasionally  throw- 
ing in  her  usual  impromptu  and  startling  observations 
such  as  that  Balfour  was  an  abstraction  and  not  a  man, 
and  that  the  upper  part  of  his  face  was  like  Christ — which 
made  A.  J.  B.  laugh  consumedly. 

With  one  other  extract  from  Colonel  Repington's 
pages,  I  will  leave  the  exploration  of  his  book,  which 
has  many  merits,  to  the  reader  who  cares  to  compare 
my  few  samples  with  the  thing  as  a  whole. 

This  particular  extract  brings  us  back  to  the  War. 
The  date  is  September,  1917,  the  place  Paris: 

Le  Roy  asked  me  the  inevitable  question  about  the 
end  of  the  War,  and  I  said  that  I  saw  no  good  reason 
why  it  should  end  until  the  Huns  were  more  badly  beaten. 
Since  nations  counted  money  no  more  than  pebbles  on  a 
beach,  and  all  would  probably  repudiate  in  one  form  or 
another  at  the  end  of  the  War,  there  seemed  no  reason 
for  stopping,  especially  as  so  many  people  were  growing 
rich  by  the  War;  the  ladies  liked  being  without  their  hus- 
bands, and  all  dreaded  the  settlement  afterwards,  indus- 
trial, political,  financial,  domestic. 

In  this  paragraph  of  the  diarist  you  may  discover, 
I  think,  the  germ  of  that  disease  which  has  destroyed 
the  moral  character  of  modern  Fashion:  the  disease, 
I  mean,  of  cynicism.  The  living  principle  of  a  cynical 
spirit  is  scepticism,  but  scepticism  only  of  what  is  high 
and  honourable,  sincere  and  true,  virtuous  and  earnest. 
As  touching  all  that  is  low,  abominable,  contemptible, 


u.  &u. 


LORD    MORLEY 


SOME  GLIMPSES  OF  THE  NORMAL       33 

disgusting,  cowardly,  or  disgraceful  to  a  man  of  prin- 
ciple, cynicism  is  credulity  itself. 

People  like  Colonel  Repington  know  as  well  as  we 
do  that  no  great  nation  would  repudiate  its  debt  unless 
actual  ruin  brought  the  whole  financial  structure  of  its 
civilisation  to  the  dust.  They  know,  too,  that  for 
thousands  of  women  the  absence  of  their  husbands  in 
the  War  was  an  intolerable  anguish,  calling  from  their 
lips  night  after  night,  and  morning  after  morning,  such 
prayers  as  Amelia  in  Brussels  addressed  to  God  for  the 
safety  of  George  Osborne.  They  know  these  things  as 
well  as  we  do;  in  the  privacy  of  their  hearts  they 
acknowledge  them ;  but  to  admit  such  opinions  in  public, 
to  state  them  in  print,  to  publish  them  with  their  names 
to  the  world,  this  would  do  violence  to  the  essential 
scepticism  of  their  souls,  and  worse,  damage  their 
reputations  in  fashionable  circles  as  men  and  women 
of  the  world. 

The  normal  life  of  these  people  is  governed  by 
cynicism.  In  their  horror  of  enthusiasm,  which  they 
regard  as  vulgar,  they  have  fallen  into  the  pit  of  sneers. 
They  like  to  depreciate ;  it  is  natural  to  them  to  degrade. 
The  universe  has  no  majesty  for  them,  life  no  secrets, 
religion  no  reverence,  and  the  nature  of  man  no  illusions. 
They  know  everything — everything  that  darkens  and 
destroys,  nothing  that  elevates,  nothing  that  purifies, 
nothing  that  sustains. 

It  is  from  this  normal  life,  this  shallow  life  of  the 


34  THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

spiritual  depths,  that  Fashion  finds  it  impossible  per- 
manently to  elevate  itself.  It  cannot  take  generous 
views.  It  cannot  cherish  noble  faiths.  It  cannot  strive. 
To  climb  to  the  heights,  to  direct  the  vision  to  the 
morning  star,  to  lead  the  way  to  greater  truth,  greater 
beauty,  and  greater  goodness,  this  would  be  too  exhaust- 
ing for  souls  enervated,  if  not  rotted,  by  the  negations 
of  cynicism.  From  such  people,  is  it  not  unreasonable 
to  expect  guidance  and  direction?  In  such  hands  as 
these,  can  we  expect  to  see  the  standards  of  the  higher 
life  of  the  human  race  held  above  the  battlefields  of  the 
soul?  From  such  liFs  do  we  expect  to  hear  the  oracles 
of  wisdom  above  the  clamours  and  violence  of  political 
change? 

1 '  An  age  that  is  ceasing  to  produce  child-like  children, ' ' 
said  Francis  Thompson,  "cannot  produce  a  Shelley." 
And  he  asked  society : 

Know  you  what  it  is  to  be  a  child?  It  is  to  be  some- 
thing very  different  from  the  man  of  to-day.  It  is  to 
have  a  spirit  yet  streaming  from  the  waters  of  baptism; 
it  is  to  believe  in  love,  to  believe  in  loveliness,  to  believe 
in  belief  ...  it  is 

To  see  a  world  in  a  grain  of  sand, 

And  a  heaven  in  a  wild  flower, 
Hold  infinity  in  the  palm  of  your  hand, 

And  eternity  in  an  hour. 

It  is  to  know  not  as  yet  that  you  are  under  sentence 
of  life,  nor  petition  that  it  be  commuted  into  death. 


SOME  GLIMPSES  OF  THE  NORMAL       35 

How  discordantly  this  extract  rings  in  the  company 
of  quotations  from  The  First  World  War!  One  feels 
that  it  has  the  uncouth  Doric  of  a  solecism.  One  knows 
that  Fashion  will  raise  her  darkened  eyebrows  at  it. 

If  we  have  discovered  the  normal  life  of  Fashion, 
and  if  we  wish  to  strengthen  England's  place  in  the 
world,  we  must  ask  ourselves  whether  that  normal 
life  is  helpful  or  destructive.  Fashion  may  not  intend 
it,  but  her  normal  life  descends  to  lower  levels,  and 
pervades  the  entire  organism  of  the  State.  Therefore 
her  example  is  a  serious  matter ;  for  those  who  care  for 
England,  and  believe  in  her  destiny,  it  is  a  vital  matter. 

The  question,  then,  that  such  people  who  care  for 
England  have  to  ask  themselves  is  a  simple  one.  It  is 
whether  cynicism  is  right.  If  right,  then  it  is  good  for 
all  classes  of  the  community.  It  is  good  for  the  Bolshe- 
vist. But  if  wrong,  it  is  treason  in  the  high  places  of  the 
State,  that  and  nothing  less. 

One  way  of  discovering  whether  an  idea  is  right 
is  to  see  how  it  works.  Let  us  ask  ourselves,  then, 
if  the  philosophy  of  cynicism  works  in  fashionable 
circles.  Are  these  people  useful?  Are  they  happy? 
Do  they  make  us  feel  that  life  is  worth  living  ? 

If  we  see  that  these  people  are  not  useful;  if  we 
discover  that  they  are  not  happy;  if  we  know  in  our 
hearts  that  they  have  no  encouragement  to  give  to 
moral  earnestness,  intellectual  striving,  spiritual  aspir- 


36  THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

ation,  or  even  physical  effort ;  if  we  find  them  to  be  the 
wreckage  of  the  human  spirit  miserably  dragging  the 
chain  of  their  days  from  the  tents  of  Vanity  Fair 
to  the  wilderness  of  disillusion;  then,  truly,  we  can 
do  the  State  great  service  merely  by  removing  these 
false  captains  from  the  conspicuous  van  of  English 
civilisation.  They  may  be  the  victims  of  circum- 
stances; properly  known  they  may  be  objects  for  our 
compassion;  but  while  they  march  at  the  head  of  the 
nation  they  are,  first  of  all  things,  our  enemies. 


CHAPTER  IV 

MRS.  ASQUITH'S  AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

Oh,  my  God,  that  you  won't  listen  to  a  woman  of  quality 
when  her  heart  is  bursting! — Vanbrugh. 

From  the  document  of  a  man  of  the  world  we  will  now 
turn  to  the  document  of  a  woman  of  the  world — The 
Autobiography  of  Mar  got  Asquith. ' 

Mrs.  Asquith  belongs  to  that  insurgent  class  of  the 
commercial  rich  which  broke  into  society  soon  after 
the  second  Reform  Bill,  and  during  the  years  of  King 
Edward's  reign  completely  overwhelmed  it.  She  is  the 
more  deadly  foe  to  our  ancient  traditions  because  her 
attack  is  not  aimed  at  the  primitive  virtues  of  humanity 
— those  moral  outworks  of  the  social  organism.  She 
does  not  come  up  against  morals  charioted  by  Bacchus 
and  his  pards ;  she  is  certainly  no  Lais  reeling  forward  in 
the  social  route  to  clink  goblets  with  Silenus,  no  an- 
archist of  conduct  who  would  carve  "Do  as  you  like" 
across  humanity's  immemorial  tables  of  stone.  On  the 
contrary,  she  is  a  devoted  wife,  an  exemplary  mother, 
and  she  believes  in  God. 

1  The  Autobiography  of  Mar  got  Asquith. 

37 


3867 


38  THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

Her  attack  is  the  more  fatal,  because  it  is  aimed 
from  the  cherished  centre  of  domestic  life.  It  is  in  my 
view,  whether  she  is  conscious  of  it  or  not,  an  attack 
upon  manners.  That  is  to  say,  it  is  not  an  attack  upon 
the  moral  law,  but  upon  the  manner  in  which  that  law 
should  be  handled.  She  breaks  no  commandments, 
but  will  not  keep  them  within  "the  bounds  of  decency." 
Nature  would  appear  to  have  fashioned  her  with  a  thirst 
for  self-expression  so  burning,  so  gritted  with  the  sand  of 
a  spiritual  Sahara,  that  she  could  not  brook  the  ancient 
limitations  with  which  the  wisdom  of  society  long  ago 
hedged  about  the  development  of  character. 

The  path  into  which  her  disposition  urged  her  appears 
to  have  been  the  path  of  sensationalism.  To  attract 
attention  to  herself  she  converted   her  share  of  the 


hidden  river  of  life  into  a  fountain  that  should  never 
cease  to  play — if  you  will,  into  a  burst  water  pipe. 
To  be  taken  for  a  personality  she  had  to  be  different 
from  other  people.  If  the  world  went  on  its  way, 
carrying  the  taper  of  modesty  through  the  darkness  of 
this  human  night,  she  would  pin  Catherine  wheels  to 
her  front,  fasten  a  Roman  candle  at  her  brow,  and 
advance  brandishing  a  rocket  in  either  hand.  In  other 
words,  Mrs.  Asquith  seems  to  me  from  the  evidence 
of  these  pages  deliberately  to  have  sought  notoriety  by 
shock  tactics.  She  has  arrived  at  the  wall  by  trampling 
down  the  flowers. 
She  seems  to  have  flung  herself  quite  early  in  life 


MRS.  ASQUITH'S  AUTOBIOGRAPHY       39 

against  society's  spiritual  paling  of  modesty,  self- 
effacement,  restraint,  and  delicacy.  She  broke  through 
it  completely  in  the  dawn  of  her  womanhood.  Since 
then,  arrived  on  the  once  sacred  summit,  she  appears  to 
have  lent  a  sturdy  hand  to  the  building  of  that  Tower  of 
Babel  which  is  now  lighted  by  so  many  winking  electric 
signs  that  it  remains  in  the  public  eye  even  at  night. 
She  is,  decisively  and  victoriously,  of  the  company 
known  as  People  Who  Are  Talked  About. 

Now,  to  some  it  may  seem  that  this  is  to  bring  a 
charge  against  the  lady  in  language  too  severe  for 
the  offence.  After  all  (one  supposes  them  to  say),  is  it 
not  natural  for  a  high-spirited  girl  to  desire  attention? 
And  is  V enfant  terrible  to  be  regarded  as  a  criminal 
directly  she  puts  up  her  hair  and  lets  down  her  skirt? 

This  objection  shows  only  the  dangerous  pass  to 
which  people  of  Mrs.  Asquith's  description  have 
brought  the  public  judgment.  Tolerance,  said  Cole- 
ridge, is  only  possible  when  indifference  has  made  it  so. 

Immodesty  is  not  one  of  the  smaller  sins;  it  is  almost 
the  greatest.  To  be  loud,  to  be  ostentatious,  to  be 
always  thinking  of  self-expression,  is  not  to  find  a  police- 
man approaching  us,  but  to  empty  the  heart  of  its  divin- 
est  essence.  If  a  vulgar  audacity,  a  constant  daring,  a 
ceaseless  pushfulness  of  the  soul,  fill  us  with  no  horror, 
it  is  because  we  have  become  indifferent  to  the  spirit- 
ual life.  Nothing,  indeed,  so  insidiously  corrupts  the 
spiritual  foundations  of  human  character  as  that  intern- 


40  THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

perate  egoism  which  looks  with  contempt  upon  modesty, 
and  nothing  can  be  more  fatal  to  society.  We  can 
wait  for  a  gross  aristocracy  to  come  to  its  repentant 
senses  in  its  next  generation.  But  what  is  to  be  the 
end  of  an  English  aristocracy  which  decides  for  anarchy 
in  manners?  Better  to  go  honestly  to  the  trough  than 
to  sit  painting  one's  face  at  an  open  window. 

If  you  would  understand  quite  clearly  what  I  mean, 
compare  Lord  Frederic  Hamilton's  picture  of  his 
mother,  the  gracious  and  beautiful  Duchess  of  Aber- 
corn,  with  the  looking-glass  portrait  of  Mrs.  Asquith's 
autobiography.  The  duchess  belonged  to  a  society 
which  had  no  acquaintance  with  the  Vulgar  Rich.  One 
may  say  of  her  that  she  did  not  avoid  limelight,  but  that 
she  had  no  knowledge  of  its  existence.  She  was  not 
only  exemplary  in  all  the  relations  of  human  life,  but 
she  possessed,  like  Mme.  Roland,  "a  consummate  moral 
nature";  and,  like  Mme.  Guizot,  aimed  at  "an  inner 
development  of  integrity,  delicacy,  refinement  of 
thought,  and  refinement  of  feeling."  Her  exquisite 
manners  were  the  outward  and  visible  expression  of  a 
vital  inward  and  spiritual  grace. 

She  could  not  have  written  such  a  book  as  this. 
The  idea  is  inconceivable.  Even  if  she  had  been 
brought  to  direst  penury  she  could  not  have  sold  to  the 
public  the  story  of  her  love.  Far  rather  would  she  have 
died  of  starvation.  But  Mrs.  Asquith  sells  to  the  public 
not  merely  the  long  chronicle  of  her  amorous  adventures, 


MRS.  ASQUITH'S  AUTOBIOGRAPHY       41 

telling  us  who  proposed  to  her  and  how  she  explained 
matters  to  the  first  Mrs.  Asquith,  but  even  a  most 
intimate  letter  of  sympathy  written  to  her,  by  a  man 
still  living,  on  the  death  of  one  of  her  children. 

What  are  we  to  think  of  such  insensibility  as  this? 
Here,  of  course,  she  was  not  thinking  of  sensation;  a 
monetary  incentive  must  have  been  not  merely  far  from 
her  thoughts  but  obliterated  from  her  mind.  Yet  the 
sacred  letter  goes  in  with  the  rest.  How  was  this 
possible? 

We  ask  ourselves,  did  no  tears  fall  upon  it?  Did  her 
hand  not  shake  a  little  when  she  turned  over  the  fad- 
ing pages,  remembering  the  acuteness  of  her  former 
anguish?  Did  she  not  shrink,  if  only  for  a  moment, 
from  the  profanation  of  giving  those  words,  which  had 
meant  so  much  to  her,  to  the  printer?  All  we  know  is 
this,  that  the  letter  went  in  with  the  rest. 

Yet  we  read, ' '  I  shrank  then,  as  I  do  now,  from  expos- 
ing the  secrets  and  sensations  of  life.  Reticence  should 
guard  the  soul,  and  only  those  who  have  compassion 
should  be  admitted  to  the  shrine.  When  I  peer  among 
my  dead  or  survey  my  living  friends,  I  see  hardly  any- 
one with  this  quality."     Notice  that  word  peer. 

Surely  there  is  in  this  paragraph  evidence  of  a  mind| 
too  heated  and  disordered  for  clear  thinking.  The  lady  | 
sorrowfully  puts  friendship  on  one  side,  and  dances 
away  to  embrace  the  printer. 

Do  not  let  us  hurry  past  this  disagreeable  incident. 


42  THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

Is  it  not  a  just  conclusion  that  Mrs.  Asquith  gave 
this  letter  to  the  publisher  because  she  could  see  no 
harm  in  that  action?  And  if  she  saw  no  harm  in  it, 
must  we  not  therefore  conclude  that  she  does  not  feel 
the  same  compunctions  which  operate  in  almost  all 
civilised  persons  ?  But  she  is  moral,  clever,  brave,  kind. 
She  is  no  monster.  How,  then,  is  it  that  she  did  not  feel 
those  compunctions? 

The  answer  is — she  has  ceased  to  be  simple. 

This  is  the  peril  of  aristocracy,  the  most  deadly  blow 
inflicted  upon  it  by  the  forces  which  have  conquered 
and  possessed  its  territory.  All  beauty  of  the  heart,  all 
grandeur  of  the  mind,  all  dignity  of  the  spirit,  repose 
upon  the  first  simplicities  of  human  nature,  the  pieties 
which  were  as  natural  to  Newton  and  Wordsworth  as 
to  any  of  those  Suffolk  old  women  with  whose  cottage 
talk  Edward  FitzGerald  was  wont  to  refresh  his  spirit 
after  visiting  London. 

There  was  a  time  when  English  aristocracy  made 
its  influence  felt  throughout  the  whole  social  organism 
from  a  privacy  and  a  seclusion  which  were  inviolate. 
Queen  Victoria's  great  duchesses  of  Abercorn,  Buc- 
cleuch,  Sutherland,  Devonshire,  Marlborough,  and 
Westminster;  the  Cecils,  the  Lytteltons,  and  the  Greys; 
women  like  Lady  Frederick  Cavendish  and  George 
Wyndham's  mother,  these  radiated  through  the  na- 
tional life  a  spiritual  influence  which  had  its  source  in  the 
simplicities  of  the  human  heart.    That  time  is  past 


MRS.  ASQUITH'S  AUTOBIOGRAPHY       43 

We  tre  a  nation  without  standards.  Society's  door  has 
been  opened  from  within,  and  we  now  look  through  that 
portal  upon  a  spectacle  which,  where  it  does  not  disgust, 
either  baffles  us  or  bores  us  with  ennui. 

We  could  not  have  a  better  witness  to  this  truth  than 
Mrs.  Asquith.  She  is  not  evil ;  she  is  not  base ;  she  is  by 
no  means  without  good  qualities.  But  how  disastrously 
she  has  lost  her  way !  Observe  that  she  does  not  know 
when  she  offends  good  taste.  She  is  terribly  immodest 
without  being  aware  of  it.  She  dances  before  us, 
grimaces,  curtsies,  kisses  her  hand  to  the  public,  without 
any  fear  that  many  may  laugh  and  some  may  turn  away 
with  a  shudder.  She  seems  to  be  an  illustration  of  a 
derisive  phrase  in  the  north,  "an  owd  yow  dressed  lamb 
fashion."  Spiritually  she  has  not  grown;  she  is  still  in 
the  nursery ;  her  greatest  happiness  is  still  to  be  brought 
downstairs  after  dinner  to  amuse  the  guests.  Time  has 
not  developed  her  finer  qualities;  it  has  only  intensified 
her  worst. 

Amiel  says  of  people  who  snatch  their  hands  away 

from  Simplicity,  and  go  their  own  way  to  predominance 

and  power: 

.  .  .  they  do  not  live  by  the  soul;  they  ignore  the 
immutable  and  eternal;  they  bustle  at  the  circum- 
ference of  their  existence  because  they  cannot  pene- 
trate to  its  centre.  They  are  restless,  eager,  positive, 
because  they  are  superficial.  To  what  end,  all  this 
stir,  noise,  greed,  struggle  ?  It  is  all  a  mere  being  stunned 
and  deafened. 


44  THE  GLAvSS  OF  FASHION 

Lessing  said:  "Ever  so  much  lightning  does  not 
make  daylight." 

Mrs.  Asquith  reminds  me  in  one  respect  of  Mme. 
de  Stael,  who  was  so  restless  for  a  sceptre  that  she 
kept  a  twig  of  laurel  by  her  side  with  which  she  toyed 
during  conversation.  How  she  fought  against  the 
advancing  years  "which  echo  with  hoarse  voice  the 
brilliant  airs  of  youth!"  Moreover,  when  she  lay 
dying,  she  had  herself  carried  out  into  the  garden  and 
there  distributed  roses  for  remembrance.  The  penalty 
of  ceasing  to  be  simple  is  that  we  become  theatrical. 

In  order  that  the  reader  who  has  not  yet  possessed 
himself  of  Mrs.  Asquith's  Autobiography  may  see 
Fashionable  Society  from  her  angle,  as  he  has  already 
seen  it  from  Colonel  Repington's,  I  will  give  a  few 
extracts  from  her  pages : 

Laura  had  been  disturbed  by  hearing  that  we  were 
considered  "fast."  She  told  me  that  receiving  com- 
pany in  our  bedroom  shocked  people  and  that  we  ought, 
perhaps,  to  give  it  up.  I  listened  closely  to  what  she 
had  to  say  and  at  the  end  remarked  that  it  appeared  to 
me  absurd. 

Here  is  the  description  of  the  bedroom : 

.  .  .  my  walls  were  ornamented  with  curious  objects,  vary- 
ing from  caricatures  and  crucifixes  to  prints  of  prize- 
fights, fox-hunts,  virgins,  and  Wagner.  In  one  of  the 
turrets  I  hung  my  clothes;  in  the  other  I  put  an  altar  on 
which  I  kept  my  books  of  prayer  and  a  skull.  .  .  .     We 


MRS.  ASQUITH'S  AUTOBIOGRAPHY       45 

wore  charming  dressing-jackets,  and  sat  up  in  bed  with 
coloured  cushions  behind  our  backs,  while  the  brothers 
and  friends  sat  on  the  floor  or  in  comfortable  chairs  round 
the  room. 

She  says  of  herself  elsewhere:  "Bold  as  well  as  fear- 
less, and  always  against  convention,  I  was,  no  doubt, 
extremely  difficult  to  bring  up."  And  in  another  place, 
making  us  wonder  if  she  understands  the  meaning  of 
the  words,  she  writes :  ' '  Nevertheless  we  were  all  deeply 
religious,  by  which  no  one  need  infer  that  we  were 
good." 

The  question  is,  not  whether  she  was  good,  but 
whether  she  had  the  least  notions  of  delicacy. 

It  is  characteristic,  I  think,  of  Mrs.  Asquith's  mind 
that  so  much  of  the  wit  in  her  volume  should  be  in  the 
region  of  retort.  She  is  a  past  mistress  in  the  art  of  the 
"back-answer,"  and  seems  to  relish  it  in  her  friends. 
But  reflection  tells  us  that  repartee  is  the  language 
of  self-assurance,  its  chief  theatre  the  street  corner. 
Experience  shows,  I  think,  that  retort  is  seldom  the 
utterance  of  a  really  beautiful  and  sensitive  mind. 

Here  is  a  significant  extract  from  her  diary: 

Mamma  is  dead.     She  died  this  morning,  and  Glen 
isn't  my  home  any  more. 

The  reader  need  not  prepare  himself  for  deep  emotion. 
The  diarist  proceeds:  "Mamma's  life  and  death  have 
taught  me  many  things."    Then  follows  a  long  analysis 


46  THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

of  the  mother's  character,  whose  body  apparently  was 
not  yet  in  its  coffin.    For  example : 

Few  women  have  speculative  minds,  nor  can  they 
deliberate;  they  have  instincts,  quick  apprehensions, 
and  powers  of  observation.  .  .  .  Mamma  was  in  all 
these  things  like  the  rest  of  her  sex. 

I  must  confess  that  this  shocks  me. 

I  will  give  an  incident  which  seems  to  me  character- 
istic of  a  thoroughly  degenerate  age. 

One  night,  as  a  young  unmarried  girl,  Mrs.  Asquith 
went  alone  to  the  Opera  House  at  Dresden.  She  re- 
members what  she  wore  on  that  occasion.  It  was 
something  conspicuous — a  scarlet  dress,  pearls,  and  a 
black  cloth  cape.  She  tells  us  that  she  was  having  "a 
frank  stare"  round  the  house,  when  she  caught  sight  of 
an  officer  in  a  white  uniform : 

He  was  a  fine-looking  young  man,  with  tailor-made 
shoulders,  a  small  waist,  and  silver  and  black  on  his 
sword-belt.  On  closer  inspection  he  was  even  hand- 
somer than  I  thought. 

The  white  officer,  we  are  told,  began  to  look  about 
the  house  when  his  eyes  caught  Miss  Tennant's  red 
dress. 

He  put  up  his  glasses  and  I  instantly  put  mine  down. 
Although  the  lights  were  lowered  for  the  overture,  I 
saw  him  looking  at  me  for  some  time.  .  .  . 

When  the  curtain  dropped  at  the  end  of  the  first  act, 


MRS.  ASQUITH'S  AUTOBIOGRAPHY       47 

I  left  the  box.  It  did  not  take  me  long  to  identify 
the  white  officer.  ...  As  I  passed  him  I  had  to  stop 
for  a  moment  for  fear  of  treading  on  his  outstretched 
toes.  He  pulled  himself  erect  to  get  out  of  my  way; 
I  looked  up  and  our  eyes  met;  I  don't  think  I  blush 
easily,  but  something  in  his  gaze  may  have  made  me 
blush.     I  lowered  my  eyelids  and  walked  on. 

It  was  raining  that  night  and  Miss  Tennant  could 
not  get  a  cab,  so  she  pulled  her  cloak  over  her  head 
and  started  to  walk  home : 

Suddenly  I  became  aware  that  I  was  being  followed; 
heard  the  even  steps  and  the  click  of  spurs  of  some- 
one walking  behind  me;  I  should  not  have  noticed  this 
had  I  not  halted  under  a  lamp  to  pull  on  my  hood, 
which  the  wind  had  blown  off.  .  .  .  The  street  being 
deserted,  I  was  unable  to  endure  it  any  longer;  I  turned 
round  and  there  was  the  officer.  .  .  .  He  saluted  me  and 
asked  me  in  a  curious  Belgian  French  if  he  might  accom- 
pany me  home.     I  said : 

"Oh,  certainly!  But  I  am  not  at  all  nervous  in  the 
dark." 

As  they  walked  along  together,  this  unknown  officer 
and  this  future  wife  of  a  British  Prime  Minister,  the 
following  conversation  occurred  between  them : 

Officer:  "You  would  not  like  to  go  and  have  supper 
with  me  in  the  private  room  of  the  hotel,  no?" 

Margot:  "You  are  very  kind,  but  I  don't  like  supper; 
besides,  it  is  too  late."  (Leaving  his  side  to  look  at  the 
number  on  the  door.)     "  I  am  afraid  we  must  part  here." 

Officer  (drawing  a  long  breath):  "But  you  said  I 
might  accompany  you  to  your  home!" 


48  THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

Margot  (with  a  slow  smile):  "I  know  I  did;  but 
this  is  my  home." 

He  looked  disappointed  and  surprised,  but  taking 
my  hand  he  kissed  it,  then,  stepping  back,  saluted,  and 
said:  " Pardonnez-moi,  mademoiselle." 

So  the  incident  ends,  with  an  apology  which  appears 
to  have  ministered  to  Miss  Tennant's  pride.  "Pardon- 
nez-moi, mademoiselle."  He  had  mistaken  her  for — a 
lady  who  would  go  to  supper  with  him.  What  a 
blunder ! 

But  the  incident  is  nothing.  It  is  its  publication 
that  takes  away  the  breath.  Why  is  it  published? 
What  is  the  point  of  it?  When  you  remember  that 
Mrs.  Asquith  is  fifty-six  years  of  age,  and  reflected  upon 
the  fact  that  it  served  no  political  or  social  end  to  pub- 
lish in  1920  so  unpleasant  an  experience  of  her  eventful 
past,  you  will  agree  that  there  is  an  element  here  of  per- 
sisting indelicacy,  which  in  a  young  woman  would  be 
disagreeable,  but  in  an  elderly  woman  is  disgusting. 

You  see  her  nature  when  she  tells  you  that  she 
"listened  closely"  to  Laura's  warning  about  being 
"fast,"  deciding  that  the  idea  was  absurd.  She  thinks 
where  most  people  are  guided  by  instinct.  But  even 
here  she  does  not  think  very  far.  She  did  not  think,  for 
instance,  in  the  matter  of  bedroom  entertainments, 
whether  it  would  be  "absurd"  for  the  maidservants  in 
the  attics  to  hold  a  bedroom  salon — or  should  it  be 
saloon? — with  the  knife-boy,   the  footmen,  and  the 


Paul  Thompson 


GENERAL   SIR    IAN    HAMILTON 


MRS.  ASQUITH'S  AUTOBIOGRAPHY       49 

butler,  while  she  and  her  sister  entertained  "company" 
on  the  floor  below.  Apparently,  however,  she  does  not 
perceive  that  there  is  no  logic  in  manners.  There  is  no 
reason  in  logic  why  she  should  not  clean  her  teeth  on  the 
doorstep.  There  is  no  reason  in  logic  why  she  should 
not  make  a  loud  noise  when  she  eats.  There  is  no  rea- 
son in  logic  why  she  should  not  dig  M.  Bonvin  in  the 
ribs  when  she  goes  to  luncheon  at  the  Ritz.  Nice  people 
do  not  do  these  things.  Neither  do  they  ever  ask 
themselves  why  they  do  not  do  them.  It  is  instinctive 
with  them  not  to  do  such  things. 

Mrs.  Asquith,  however,  is  a  law  to  herself.  That 
is  why  I  call  her  a  social  anarchist.  That  is  why  I 
say  her  influence  has  been  ruinous.  But  she  has  the 
wisdom  of  the  serpent  as  well  as  its  tongue.  She  can  be 
perfectly  subdued  on  occasion.  She  can  be  demure. 
Is  she  not  devoted  to  Queen  Alexandra? 

She  may  be  regarded,  I  think,  as  one  of  those  electri- 
cal contrivances  which  can  pass  into  the  veins  either 
a  pleasant  vibration,  very  beneficial  to  vitality,  or  a 
shock  capable  of  destroying  vitality  altogether.  It  is 
entirely  a  matter  of  the  current. 

She  has  no  delicacy ;  she  is  proud  of  what  she  calls  her 
"social  courage,"  she  is  always  against  the  conventions; 
but  she  has  a  certain  amount  of  tact.  She  would  not 
switch  on  quite  so  much  current  for  John  Morley,  or 
Gilbert  Murray,  as  for  lesser  men,  men  of  a  more  vigor- 
ous vitality. 


50  THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

This  perhaps  may  explain  the  really  beautiful  and 
noble  letters  of  Benjamin  Jowett,  which  appear  in  this 
book,  and  even  a  letter  quite  astonishing  and  almost 
shocking  which  John  Morley  wrote  to  the  lady  at  the 
time  of  her  marriage. 

John  Morley  has  condemned  fashionable  society 
with  a  contempt  as  withering  as  Voltaire's,  and  with 
an  austerity  as  high  as  Mill's.  A  score  of  fiery  passages 
come  into  my  mind.  He  speaks  of  fashionable  life  as 
"that  dance  of  mimes,"  pours  scorn  on  "that  egoism 
which  makes  the  passions  of  the  individual  his  own 
law,"  and  denounces  the  man  of  the  world  as  "that 
worst  enemy  of  the  world."  Who,  in  modern  times, 
has  lent  to  moral  effort,  to  spiritual  aspiration,  a  man- 
lier hand  than  John  Morley? 

And  yet,  how  does  this  great  moralist,  this  burning 
reformer,  this  impassioned  philosopher  of  history,  write 
to  a  person  so  notorious  for  egoism  and  reckless  self- 
assertion  as  Miss  Margot  Tennant? 

He  says:  "Don't  improve  by  an  atom." 

I  think  John  Morley's  "don't  improve"  deserves  to 
live  in  history. 

In  this  letter  he  speaks  of  the  people  who  wish  Miss 
Margot  Tennant  to  improve  as  "those  impertinents," 
and  says,  "I  very  respectfully  wish  nothing  of  the  sort." 
Note  that  "very  respectfully." 

Are  the  great  so  easily  dazzled  by  a  little  boldness 
in  the  small?    When  we  draw  quite  closely  to  them 


MRS.  ASQUITH'S  AUTOBIOGRAPHY       51 

are  they  great  at  all,  these  idols  of  our  youth?  I 
wonder  if  indiscretion  is  not  the  greatest  of  all 
iconoclasts. 

Don't  improve! — and  society  going  down  hill  at  that 
time  with  both  brakes  off.  Don't  improve!  — and 
the  other  classes  of  the  community  looking  to  Fashion 
as  never  before  for  its  examples.  Don't  improve! — 
and  every  philosopher  of  antiquity  proclaiming  that 
goodness  is  something  to  be  achieved  by  constant  effort 
and  unwearying  watchfulness.  Don't  improve! — and 
he  has  applauded  with  all  his  eloquence  the  moral 
earnestness  of  one  who  said  "the  greatest  of  all  sins  is 
to  be  conscious  of  none." 

It  is  kind  to  suppose  that  Mrs.  Asquith  tempers 
the  wind  of  her  "social  courage"  to  the  shorn  lamb 
of  philosophical  innocence.  The  current  changes  with 
the  conditions.  John  Morley  never  felt,  we  may  be 
sure,  that  Miss  Margot  Tennant  was  a  woman  "whose 
fire  would  blast  the  soul"  of  his  friend,  Henry  Asquith; 
and  Peter  Flower,  we  suspect,  never  dreamed  of  writing 
a  letter  to  this  brilliant  chameleon  bidding  her  very 
respectfully  not  to  improve. 

Mrs.  Asquith,  let  me  assure  the  reader,  has  many 
gifts  and  graces  to  commend  her.  One  of  my  greatest 
friends  is  a  friend  of  hers,  and  he  tells  me  that  he  likes 
her  very  much.  Sir  Arbuthnot  Lane,  no  emotionalist, 
has  assured  me  of  the  same  thing.  Mrs.  Drew,  a  first- 
rate  person,  has  written  of  her,  if  with  some  criticism, 


52  THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

yet  also  with  evident  affection.  Moreover,  there  are 
the  letters  of  Jowett  in  this  book  to  make  one  feel  how 
easily  Mrs.  Asquith  can  control  her  current. 

Mrs.  Lloyd  George  once  told  me  that  no  one  could 
have  been  kinder  to  her  when  she  first  moved  into 
Downing  Street  than  Mrs.  Asquith,  who  went  out  of  her 
way  to  make  the  difficult  path  of  Mrs.  Lloyd  George 
smooth  and  easy.  When  Lord  Harcourt's  diaries  are 
published  people  will  understand  what  that  kindness 
meant.  I  know  a  few  people  who  indeed  speak  warmly 
of  her;  but  I  know  numbers  of  women  who  detest  the 
very  mention  of  her  name.  They  are  not  jealous.  They 
simply  feel  that  her  "social  courage"  is  odious,  a 
euphemism  for  effrontery. 

Her  attraction  must  have  been  far  greater  twenty 
or  thirty  years  ago.  I  think  she  dazzled  people.  She 
was  the  herald  of  a  new  order;  and  even  the  great  are 
not  proof  against  a  fresh  sensation.  Stories  floated 
through  the  world  concerning  "those  extraordinary 
Tennant  girls."  I  remember  a  discussion  at  Ascot 
years  ago  concerning  Margot  Tennant,  Henry  James 
one  of  the  listeners.  It  was  the  old  order  holding  up 
its  hands  in  scandalised  unbelief .  She  may  be  called 
the  Grandmother  of  the  Flapper. 

In  the  suburbs  it  was  asked,  is  she  the  smart  young 
lady  of  Mr.  Hope's  Dolly  Dialogues  ?  and  also,  is  she 
Mr.  Benson's  Dodo  ?  She  was  said  to  have  dashed  off 
the  description  of  a  certain  great  lady  in  these  words: 


MRS.  ASQUITH'S  AUTOBIOGRAPHY       53 

"Rectitude,  platitude,  sailorhatitude."  The  good 
things  not  said  by  Lady  Constance  Hatch  or  Mrs.  Willie 
James  were  credited  to  Mrs.  Asquith.  And  all  the  bad 
things  to  be  told  about  anyone  were  told  about ' '  Mrs .  A. " 

She  has  now  painted  her  own  portrait,  and  scandal 
may  take  a  long  vacation.  We  know  her,  not  only  as 
she  sees  herself,  but  as  she  does  not  see  herself,  even  in 
her  own  looking-glass. 

There  are  certain  things  to  like  in  her:  her  generosity, 
her  kindness,  her  truthfulness  (not  her  accuracy), and  her 
freedom  from  snobbishness.  But  I  miss  in  these  pages, 
so  full  of  aristocratic  names  and  proud  titles,  to  most 
of  which  are  appended  such  phrases  as  "my  friend," 
"my  dear  friend,"  "my  dearest  friend,"  "my  beloved 
friend,"  the  humble  name  of  two  people  whose  friendly 
kindness  to  her  would  seem  to  confer  upon  them  at 
least  a  title  to  honourable  mention.  But  likeable  as 
certain  people  may  find  her,  I  have  now  no  doubt,  after 
reading  her  book,  that  I  was  right  in  the  suggestion  at 
which  I  permitted  myself  only  to  hint  in  The  Mirrors  of 
Downing  Street  concerning  Mr.  Asquith 's  fall  from 
power.  And  I  think  I  am  right  in  saying  now  that  her 
influence  in  English  society  has  been  corrupting  and 
destructive.  She  seems  to  me  definitely  in  arms  against 
all  those  graces  which  are  the  very  sinew  of  good 
manners. 

Jowett,  she  says,  was  "apprehensive  of  my  social 
reputation . ' '    And  proceeds : 


54  THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

He  was  extremely  simple-minded,  and  had  a  pathetic 
belief  in  the  fine  manners,  high  tone,  wide  education, 
and  lofty  example  of  the  British  aristocracy.  It  shocked 
him  that  I  did  not  share  it:  I  felt  his  warnings  much  as  a 
duck  swimming  might  feel  (sic)  the  duckings  of  a  hen  on 
the  bank 

— a  thing  clearly  impossible  for  anyone  to  achieve. 
But  Mrs.  Asquith  seldom  entered  the  diminishing 
circle  where  fine  manners  were  to  be  found.  One 
is  astonished  in  going  through  her  pages  to  see  how 
few  people  she  knew  intimately,  whose  influence  one 
remembers  with  a  still  fragrant  gratitude.  I  do  not 
think,  for  example,  that  she  knew  Lady  Frederick 
Cavendish,  or  the  beautiful  Duchess  of  Westminster, 
or  any  of  the  Hamiltons,  the  Spencers,  or  the  Howards. 
I  do  not  think  that  she  has  been  an  intimate  friend  of  the 
Portlands,  or  the  Lansdownes,  the  Cecils,  or  the  Percys. 
When  I  was  reading  the  chapters  of  her  childhood, 
where  she  tells  us  that  she  loved  climbing  on  the  roof  of 
the  house,  I  wondered  if  it  ever  occurred  to  her  that  she 
might  end  in  the  basement.  A  fall  is  so  easy  for  heads 
not  accustomed  to  great  heights.  And  when  I  came 
to  the  last  page  of  this  long  pilgrimage  through  Vanity 
Fair  which  nevertheless  leaves  so  much  more  to  be  said, 
I  found  the  following  passage : 

An  unfettered  childhood  and  triumphant  youth;  a  lot  of 
love-making  and  a  little  abuse;  a  little  fame  and  more 
abuse;  a  real  man  and  great  happiness;  the  love  of  child- 


MRS.  ASQUITH'S  AUTOBIOGRAPHY       55 

ren  and  seventh  heaven;  an  early  death  and  a  crowded 
memorial  service. 


That  final  aspiration,  which  I  have  put  into  italics, 
seems  to  me  to  justify  my  speculation  in  the  early  pages 
regarding  a  fall  to  the  basement,  and  also  to  justify 
my  judgment  that  Mrs.  Asquith's  sensational  career  has 
not  been  good  for  the  spiritual  life  of  English  society. 

When  she  was  a  child  and  was  brought  down  to 
the  drawing-room,  she  would  make  entrance  with 
the  announcement,  ' '  Me's  here ! ' '  That  intense  feeling 
of  self-importance  has  remained  with  her  to  the  end, 
and  nothing  that  can  be  said  of  her  book  will  shake  the 
iron  egoism  of  her  character  or  make  her  feel  for  a 
moment  that  she  has  committed  a  grave  indelicacy. 

To  the  end  she  will  live  self-satisfied  and  flamboyant 
in  an  atmosphere  of  "caricatures  and  crucifixes";  she 
will  assuredly  have  her  desire  in  "a  crowded  memorial 
service,"  and  I  do  not  think  it  is  unlikely  that  her  first 
utterance  in  the  next  world  will  be,  "Me's  here!" 

One  of  the  chapters  in  The  Mirrors  of  Downing  Street 
which  has  been  challenged  by  a  somewhat  intemperate 
criticism  is  that  in  which  I  hint  as  delicately  as  possible 
that  Mrs.  Asquith  has  not  been  a  good  influence  on  Mr. 
Asquith's  career.  Since  those  words  were  written,  Mr. 
Wilfrid  Scawen  Blunt,  a  great  friend  of  Mrs.  Asquith, 
has  published  the  second  part  of  his  Diaries. l    In  Octo- 

1  My  Diaries,  by  Wilfrid  Scawen  Blunt. 


56  THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

ber,  1909,  he  had  a  conversation  with  Mr.  Winston 
Churchill,  who  gave  him  the  following  information 
concerning  Mr.  Asquith: 

"He  will  sit  up  playing  bridge  and  drinking  late  at 
night.  .  .  .  Asquith  has  gone  morally  downhill.  From 
the  Puritan  he  was,  he  has  adopted  the  polite  frivolities 
of  society.  .  .  .  He  had  gone  all  to  pieces  at  one  time, 
but  pulled  himself  together  when  he  became  Prime 
Minister." 

Mr.  Dillon  told  the  diarist  the  same  thing  in  1910: 
"He  had  been  ruined  by  his  second  marriage  to  one  who 
was  a  Tory  at  heart.  .  .  .  Asquith  was  quite  demor- 
alised. .  .  .  Before  his  second  marriage  Asquith  was 
quite  different.  ...  He  had  no  pretensions  then  to 
being  anything  but  what  he  was,  a  Nonconformist  of 
the  middle-class;  now  he  had  adopted  all  the  failings  of 
the  aristocracy." 

Mr.  Blunt  says:  "This  evolution  of  the  square-toed 
Asquith,  with  his  middle-class  Puritanical  bringing  up 
and  his  severity  of  conduct,  into  a  'gay  dog'  of  London 
society  is  to  me  irresistibly  funny." 

It  is  that,  too;  but,  in  the  first  place,  something 
much  more  serious. 


CHAPTER  V 

A  STUDY  IN  CONTRAST 

Ah!  if  Madame  de  Stael  had  been  Catholic,  she  would  have 
been  adorable,  instead  of  famous. — Joseph  de  Maistre. 

The  two  images  farthest  removed  from  each  other  which 
can  be  comprehended  under  one  term,  are,  I  think,  Isaiah, 
''Hear,  O  heavens,  and  give  ear,  0  earth!";  and  Levi,  of  Holy- 
well Street,  "Old  Clothes!";  both  of  them  Jews,  you'll  observe. 
Immane  quantum  discrepant! — S.  T.  Coleridge. 

It  is  the  misfortune  of  many  to  suppose  that  every 
protest  against  badness  is  dictated  by  a  partiality  for 
gloom.  Flippant  people,  with  their  tiresome  cliches, 
their  incessant  giggling,  and  their  little  blasphemies, 
have  not  the  least  idea  that  the  highest  form  of  wit  and 
the  gayest  exercise  of  good  humour  are  to  be  found  only 
among  the  noble-minded. 

As  a  taste  for  loud  music  tends  to  degrade  the  ear 
till  it  is  incapable  not  only  of  appreciating  good  music, 
but  even  of  recognising  it  when  it  is  heard,  so  the  indul- 
gence of  the  mind  in  feeble  or  second-rate  humour  leads 
at  last  to  an  incapacity  for  humour  of  the  highest  order. 
One  seems  to  see  in  Fashion's  appetite  for  the  music  of 

57 


58  THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

negro  bands  a  return  to  the  jungle,  a  return  to  a  primi- 
tive state  of  society  in  which  the  buffon  was  held  to  be  a 
humorist  and  the  inventor  of  practical  jokes  was  re- 
garded as  a  master  of  wit. 

I  once  asked  a  lady  famous  for  her  mots  whether  a 
certain  royal  personage  who  had  often  stayed  in  her 
houses  was  amusing  in  conversation.  "Not  in  the 
least,"  she  said.  "When  one  said  something  spirituel 
he  simply  stared;  at  dinner  he  would  often  arrest  the 
fork  on  its  way  to  his  mouth  and  inquire,  What  are  they 
laughing  at?  But  if  on  a  shoot  somebody  caught  his 
toe  on  a  turnip  and  fell  over,  he  would  hold  his  side, 
shaking  with  laughter  till  the  tears  came." 

Let  me  remind  the  age  that  Socrates  was  a  playful 
spirit,  that  Erasmus  was  overflowing  with  good  humour, 
that  Dr.  Johnson  poured  out  capital  jokes  as  copiously 
as  tea,  that  few  letters  in  the  world  compare  with 
Edward  FitzGerald's  for  wit,  that  Charles  Lamb  and 
Thomas  Hood  made  as  excellent  puns  as  any  of  our  day, 
that  Lewis  Carroll  kindled  the  sweetest  kind  of  laughter 
in  the  world's  heart,  that  Calverley  and  Locker  were 
charmingly  amusing,  and  that  no  comic  writer  of  our 
times  has  surpassed  Charles  Dickens  for  richness  of 
humour  or  Thackeray  for  delicacy  of  wit. 

All  these  men  would  not  only  have  been  displeased 
by  the  "social  courage"  of  our  contemporary  Fashion, 
for  each  one  of  them  was  distinguished  in  one  way  or 
another  for  moral  earnestness,  but  would  have  been 


A  STUDY  IN  CONTRAST  59 

unable  to  see  amusement  in  the  things  which  now  pass 
for  wit  and  humour. 

Moreover,  the  bitterest  and  most  consuming  wit 
of  the  eighteenth  century,  that  of  Voltaire  in  France 
and  Swift  in  England,  had  its  rise,  not  in  licence  and 
frivolity,  but  in  moral  rage  and  spiritual  indignation. 
Such  wit  might  come  again  in  this  period,  but  not  the 
highest  wit  of  all — the  wit  which  has  sweetness,  radiance, 
and  warmth. 

Fashion,  then,  in  degrading  manners  and  morals 
has  also  degraded  the  happy  playfulness  of  the  human 
spirit.  This  is  matter  for  reflection.  [J>ife  is  no  longer 
amusing.  It  is  not  vivacious,  but  noisy.  There  is  no 
zest,  no  richness,  no  sparkle,  no  colour,  no  fire,  no 
splendour .  It  is  drab .  It  is  dreary .  There  are  ' '  crazes ' ' 
instead  of  stability.  There  is  a  rush  for  excitement,  a 
taste  for  cocktails  and  cocaine,  a  constant  winding  up  of 
the  brain  to  experience  reaction.  The  whole  secret  of 
happiness,  quietness  at  the  centre,  is  lost.  The  one  great 
reward  of  existence,  a  sense  of  growth,  is  forgotten. 

The  truth  is  that  licence  always  tends  to  produce  an 
intellectual  marasmus;  whereas  obedience  to  law  and 
observance  of  rules  string  up  the  intellect  to  a  condition 
of  the  greatest  health  and  activity.  No  form  of  wit  is 
more  transient  than  the  wit  of  the  libertine.  No  wit  is 
so  immortal  as  the  wit  of  the  moralist. 

I  will  give  a  few  examples  of  what  Mrs.  Asquith  con- 
siders amusing : 


60  THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

...  in  a  good-humoured  way  he  made  a  butt  of  God. 

Gladstone  thinks  my  fitness  to  be  Henry's  wife  ought 
to  be  prayed  for  like  the  clergy :  Almighty  and  Everlast- 
ing God,  Who  alone  workest  great  marvels. 

"What  is  it  that  God  has  never  seen,  that  kings  see 
seldom,  and  that  we  see  every  day?" 

Raymond  instantly  answered : 

"A  joke." 

I  felt  that  the  real  answer — which  was  "an  equal" 
— was  very  tepid  after  this. 

I  heard  her  say  to  the  late  Lord  Rothschild,  one  night  at 
a  dinner  party:  "And  do  you  still  believe  the  Messiah 
is  coming,  Lord  Natty?" 

These  things  appear  in  her  book  as  witticisms. 
They  are,  apparently,  the  best  that  Fashion  can  give  us. 
I  suggest  to  the  reader  that  he  turn  to  the  Letters  of 
FitzGerald  to  see  the  wit  that  amused  a  less  complex 
period  and  an  altogether  nobler  mind.  Or,  let  him  read 
a  chapter  of  Sir  Thomas  Browne,  to  see  how  loveliness 
of  language  goes  with  loveliness  of  mind. 

One  of  the  charges  to  be  brought  against  Fashion, 
and  it  is  by  no  means  a  light  one,  is  the  charge  that 
it  has  depressed  the  human  spirit  and  degraded  the 
natural  joy  of  the  human  heart. 

As  a  contrast  to  Mrs.  Asquith,  let  us  consider  the 
wife  of  another  British  Prime  Minister,  the  wife  of 
Gladstone.  Here  was  one  whose  whole  life  was  domi- 
nated by  the  highest  conceivable  sense  of  duty  and  who 
was  profoundly  religious.  What  did  people  say  of 
her? 


A  STUDY  IN  CONTRAST  61 

Her  presence  brought  an  atmosphere,  a  climate  with 
it,  all  brightness,  freshness,  like  sunshine  and  sea  air. 

You  felt  her  splendid  intuition,  her  swift  motions, 
the  magic  of  her  elusive  phrases,  her  rapid  courage,  her 
never-failing  fund  of  sympathy,  her  radiance,  her  gaiety 
of  heart,  her  tenderness  of  response. 

Her  discretion  as  to  public  secrets,  of  which  she  knew  all, 
was  really  extraordinary ;  she  was  willing,  if  necessary,  to 
allow  herself  in  conversation  to  appear  almost  a  fool,  in 
order  to  conceal  the  fact  of  her  knowledge. 

She  radiated  tenderness. 

Religion,  not  forced,  not  obtruded,  but  as  natural  and 
vital  as  fresh  air  was,  not  an  adjunct  of  life,  but  life  itself. 

She  had  a  heavenly  sense  of  fun,  but  its  manner  of 
expression  was  all  her  own.  There  was  nothing  on  earth 
to  compare  to  the  twinkle  in  her  eye. 

In  her  admirable  memoir  of  her  mother,  which  is,  I 
think,  an  authentic  portrait  of  a  Victorian  lady,  Mrs. 
Drew  gives  some  examples  of  Catherine  Gladstone's  fun : 

Of  a  good-hearted  bustling  lady  she  would  say,  "In  she 
walked  with  her  Here  I  am  hat." 

Asked  to  describe  a  lady's  dress  .  .  .  after  picturing  the 
general  effect,  she  paused:  "As  to  the  body — well — I  can 
only  describe  it  as  a  Look  at  Me  body ! " 

On  another  occasion  she  was  speaking  about  the  un- 
loverlike  relations  of  a  newly  engaged  couple:  "To  be 
sure,"  she  said,  "they  did  sit  side  by  side  upon  the  couch; 
but  they  looked  just  like  a  coachman  and  footman  on  the 
box,  so  stiff  and  upright,  you  could  always  see  the  light 
between."1 

1  Catherine  Gladstone,  by  Mary  Drew.  This  book,  which  presents  us 
with  a  most  beautiful  picture  of  William  and  Catherine  Gladstone's  life, 


62  THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

With  a  vivacity  and  a  joyousness  which  would  have 
captivated  such  spirits  as  Edward  FitzGerald,  Charles 
Kingsley,  or  Thackeray,  Catherine  Gladstone  possessed 
a  profound  depth  of  inward  seriousness  which  was  like 
the  presence  of  an  angel. 

It  is  only  when  one  comes  to  read  Mrs.  Drew's 
monograph  that  one  realises  what  the  nation  lost  in 
Gladstone,  and  how  politics  have  rushed  downhill  since 
his  day. 

One  night  as  he  walked  through  the  London  streets 
with  a  friend,  Gladstone  turned  back  to  speak  to  a  pros- 
titute, and  presently  rejoined  his  friend  with  the  woman 
at  his  side.  The  friend  whispered, ' '  But  what  will  Mrs. 
Gladstone  say  if  you  take  this  woman  home?"  He 
answered,  "It  is  to  Mrs.  Gladstone  I  am  taking  her." 

Few  people  know  that  Gladstone  gave  himself  with 
the  deepest  passion  and  the  highest  consecration  to  the 
bitter  work  of  rescuing  degraded  women.  This  noble 
passion,  which  I  have  reason  to  know  began  while  he 
was  at  Oxford,  lasted  to  the  end  of  his  life.  The  dangers 
of  such  work  had  no  terrors  for  him.  Extraordinary- 
gossip  floated  through  the  haunts  of  scandal.  Among 
the  base  it  was  whispered,  "The  heel  of  Achilles!" 
Some  of  his  friends  would  have  dissuaded  him  from 
labours  which  almost  invited  the  political  spy  and  the 
social  slanderer  to  destroy  his  reputation.  But  Glad- 
is  essential,  as  a  well-known  statesman  has  written  an  understanding  of 
Lord  Morley's  voluminous  Life. 


A  STUDY  IN  CONTRAST  63 

stone  could  not  be  turned.  Every  woman  saved  by  his 
efforts,  every  woman  restored  to  womanhood,  every 
woman  created  anew  in  faith  and  purity  was  a  fresh 
incentive  to  his  zeal.  And  in  this  work,  as  in  every- 
thing else,  Catherine  Gladstone  was  his  partner.  Mrs. 
Gladstone  and  her  friend  Lady  Lothian  (this  fact,  I 
believe,  has  never  been  mentioned  till  now)  went 
out  regularly  at  night  in  places  like  Leicester 
Square,  Coventry  Street,  and  the  Haymarket,  seek- 
ing young  girls  and  carrying  them  off  to  homes  of 
rescue. 

The  story  of  this  difficult  and  heroic  work  of  William 
and  Catherine  Gladstone  has  not  yet  been  told  to  the 
world,  and  I  can  only  hint  at  it  here.  It  is  one  of  the 
most  romantic,  as  it  is  one  of  the  most  moving,  stories  in 
human  biography.  The  documents,  I  believe,  are  as 
numerous  as  the  political  documents;  they  witness  to 
the  fact  that  the  Gladstones  were  not  content  to  save 
girls  from  brothels  and  the  streets,  but  that  they 
followed  their  history  from  Clewer1  into  the  world,  and 
never  ceased  to  feel  a  poignant  personal  interest  in  the 
moral  and  spiritual  progress  of  the  very  least  of  those 
they  saved.  When  time  permits  this  story  of  the 
Gladstones  to  be  told  to  the  world,  I  believe  it  will  give 
mankind  a  new  enthusiasm  for  the  pressing  work  of 

1  This  great  House  of  Mercy,  near  Windsor,  embraces  an  orphanage 
a  penitentiary,  and  a  beautiful  chapel.  The  Gladstones  planned  and 
shared  with  Mr.  Monsell  in  its  establishment. 


64  THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

saving  the  womanhood  of  a  Christian  nation  from  an 
Asiatic  pollution. 

Here  is  one  incident  to  show  the  dangers  that  they 
ran: 

Sir  Howard  Vincent,  Chief  of  the  Police,  consulted 
Mr.  George  Russell  on  a  grave  difficulty.  Mr.  Glad- 
stone, he  said,  was  followed  on  all  his  walks  at  night  by 
detectives  of  the  highest  character,  men  whom  he 
trusted  firmly;  this  on  account  of  the  Irish  troubles. 
But  even  the  most  trusted  of  men  might  fall  a  victim  on 
some  occasion  to  the  offer  of  a  dazzling  bribe.  Such  a 
bribe  was  now  being  offered ;  one  of  the  most  powerful 
and  highly  placed  men  in  the  opposing  party  was  offer- 
ing a  large  sum  of  money  for  evidence  convicting  Mr. 
Gladstone  of  entering  a  house  of  ill-fame.  In  these 
circumstances,  he  felt  strongly  that  Mr.  Gladstone 
should  be  warned  of  the  danger. 

It  is  interesting  to  reflect  that  while  Gladstone 
was  heroically  struggling  with  ignorance  and  prejudice 
to  settle  the  Irish  Question  before  it  became  a  revolu- 
tionary question,  here  was  a  chief  member  of  the  party 
which  opposed  him  seeking  to  prevent  that  merciful 
act  of  statesmanship  by  striking  at  Gladstone's  moral 
character  in  the  spirit  of  an  assassin. 

Mr.  Russell  shrank  from  confronting  Gladstone 
with  this  horrible  news.  He  suggested  to  Sir  Howard 
Vincent  that  he  should  consult  Mr.  Gladstone's  secre- 
tary, Sir  Edward  Hamilton.    Sir  Edward  Hamilton 


u.  &  u. 


RT.    HON.    ARTHUR   JAMES    BALFOUR 


A  STUDY  IN  CONTRAST  65 

saw  the  peril,  but  not  without  some  fear  and  trembling 
agreed  to  warn  the  Prime  Minister. 

Gladstone  was  seated  at  his  table,  writing.  He 
looked  up  as  the  secretary  entered,  his  pen  still  resting 
on  the  paper. 

"What  is  it?" 

He  did  not  like  being  disturbed. 

The  secretary,  making  an  effort,  told  the  news. 

Gladstone  never  changed  his  position.  His  face 
hardened  a  little,  that  was  all.  Then,  in  his  deep, 
baying  voice,  he  said  very  slowly  to  the  young  man : 

"This  is  a  subject  on  which  it  has  been  my  invariable 
rule  to  keep  silence."  A  pause.  "But  do  you  suppose 
I  did  not  count  the  cost,  every  cost,  when  first  I  set  my 
hand  to  this  work?  And  do  you  imagine  that  at  my 
advanced  age,  and  with  the  accumulated  experience  of 
my  life,  my  work  or  actions  are  at  this  stage  undertaken 
in  any  haphazard  manner,  without  full  and  grave  con- 
sideration ?  I  thank  you  for  your  warning.  I  recognise 
what  it  must  have  cost  you  to  come  before  me  with  such 
a  message.  It  must  have  cost  you  a  great  deal.  I 
thank  you  for  it." 

A  slight  movement  of  his  head  dismissed  the  secretary 
and  Gladstone  continued  his  writing.  And  he  con- 
tinued, his  work  of  rescue  to  his  life's  end. 

I  told  this  story  to  one  of  the  greatest  men  of  our 
time,  whose  whole  life  has  been  inspired  by  a  deep 
admiration   for   Gladstone's   moral   idealism.     "Why 


66  THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

can't  this  story  be  told?"  he  demanded.  I  explained 
that  there  still  existed  people  who  would  like  to  believe 
evil  of  Gladstone,  low-minded  people  who  would  not 
scruple  to  whisper  that  in  secret  he  was  a  vicious  man. 
My  friend  thought  for  a  moment.  Then  he  said: 
"How  old  was  Gladstone  when  he  died?  Over  eighty. 
Was  his  face  the  face  of  a  sensualist  ?  Do  people  think 
that  a  man  could  live  to  that  age  with  a  secret  vice,  and 
show  no  sign  of  it  in  his  face?  You  tell  me  this  idea 
began  with  him  at  Oxford.  Why,  at  forty  his  face 
would  have  betrayed  him  to  all  the  world,  if  he  had  had 
such  a  weakness  in  his  heart.  But  look  at  his  face  all 
through  his  life!  Look  at  it  when  he  was  eighty!  I 
don't  think  you  could  say  it  was  the  face  of  a  satyr. 
Why,  it  was  like  an  eagle's!" 

Gladstone  felt  that  this  work  was  too  sacred  and  too 
dreadful  for  conversation.  He  never  referred  to  it  in 
public.  Even  his  most  intimate  friends  were  not  aware 
of  it.  Because  of  his  extreme  delicacy  in  the  matter, 
there  were  those  who  believed  evil  of  him.  He  knew  it. 
It  made  no  difference  to  him.  Not  a  day  passed  in  that 
long,  stormy,  and  most  busy  life  which  was  untouched, 
if  even  by  a  mere  record  in  a  book  or  a  letter  to  Clewer, 
by  this  passion  of  his  consecrated  soul. 

One  of  Gladstone's  friends,  a  distinguished  and  now 
venerable  lady,  tells  me  the  following  story,  related  to 
her  by  Sir  Henry  James,  afterwards  Lord  James  of 
Hereford : 


A  STUDY  IN  CONTRAST  67 

On  one  occasion,  when  Mr.  Gladstone  was  returning 
from  the  House  of  Commons  on  a  miserable  wet  night  in 
November,  he  saw  an  unfortunate  woman  crouching  upon 
the  steps  of  the  Duke  of  York's  monument.  He  stopped 
and  spoke  to  her,  and  asked  her  why  she  did  not  go  home. 
She  replied,  she  had  none.  He  bade  her  rise  and  follow 
him  the  short  way  that  led  to  Carlton  Gardens,  where  he 
was  then  living.  He  was  alone  in  London,  his  family  at 
Hawarden.  He  let  himself  into  the  house  with  his  latch- 
key, and  found  his  frugal  supper  prepared  in  his  library. 
Adjoining  this  was  the  room  he  used  when  alone  in 
London.  He  gave  the  woman,  cold  and  drenched  as  she 
was,  some  food;  he  then  sent  her  into  the  adjoining  room, 
bade  her  undress,  dry  her  clothes  at  the  fire  kept  burning 
for  him,  and  try  to  rest.  Meanwhile  he  locked  the  door 
of  communication  between  them,  sat  up  all  night,  reading 
and  writing,  and  when  the  morning  dawned,  let  the 
woman  go  forth  warm  and  comfortable,  with  a  few  coins 
for  her  breakfast,  and  probably  some  good  advice  and 
further  instructions. 

Such  was  the  man  who  was  helped  at  every  point 
of  his  life  by  Catherine  Gladstone,  and  not  least  of 
all  in  this  deep  passion  for  saving  the  fallen.  Of  them 
both,  when  he  lay  dying,  the  wife  of  Archbishop  Benson 
wrote: 

Their  kindness  and  thought  and  tenderness  are  inde- 
scribable. I  saw  her  again  yesterday,  and  thanked  her 
as  well  as  I  could.  They  tell  me  that  what  helps  him 
most  is  anything  that  is  said  of  his  in  any  way  helping 
the  world. 

Here  is  a  picture  of  them  at  the  end  of  their  days: 


68  THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

It  was  the  habit  of  their  lives  to  go  every  day  to  church 
before  breakfast.  They  enjoyed  the  walk,  nearly  a  mile 
uphill,  in  the  early  freshness  of  the  morning,  and  winter  or 
summer,  storm  or  sunshine,  saw  them  going  to  worship 
in  Hawarden  Church,  Mrs.  Gladstone  scattering  the  path 
with  the  letters  which  she  read  on  the  way.  Not  even 
the  early  cups  of  tea,  indispensable  to  most  people,  broke 
their  fast. 

At  the  age  of  eighty- three  or  eighty-four  he  said:  "I 
am  afraid  I  must  ask  you  to  keep  Petz  (a  favourite  dog) 
from  coming  to  church  with  me.  You  see,  I  have  to 
throw  sticks  for  him  to  pick  up,  and  stooping  every 
other  minute  to  get  one  and  then  throw  it  is  too  hard 
work  on  the  hill." 

"They  were  moved,"  we  read,  "by  the  same  ardour 
to  gather  the  very  best,  the  richest  out  of  life.  To  them 
life  was  not  a  thing  to  be  idled  and  pleasured  away;  it 
was  a  sacred  trust  that  implied  true  and  laudable  service 
to  God  and  man.     They  lifted  it  to  a  new  level." 

The  record  of  these  two  lives  is  as  fresh  and  beautiful 
as  a  bright  morning  in  April.  Their  friends  were  not 
less  brilliant,  and  not  less  exalted,  than  those  whose 
names  appear  in  contemporary  memoirs;  they  them- 
selves were  neither  heavy  nor  dull ;  the  temptations  of 
the  world  surrounding  them  on  every  side  were  as  great 
as  any  that  now  destroy  the  joy  and  beauty  of  human 
society;  but  there  was  this  vital  difference  between 
them  and  us,  between  then  and  now — the  centre  of  life 
for  people  like  the  Gladstones  was  moral  earnestness. 


A  STUDY  IN  CONTRAST  69 

That  was  their  strength.  They  knew,  as  Joseph 
de  Maistre  said,  that  constraint  does  not  weaken, 
but  strengthens.  Their  wit  was  brighter  because 
blasphemy  was  forbidden,  and  dirtiness  was  impossible. 
Their  playfulness  was  keener  because  their  work  was 
serious.  There  was  no  sprawling  of  their  minds  in  one 
direction  or  another  because  restraint  was  as  natural 
to  them  as  honesty.  There  were  boundaries,  there 
were  laws,  there  was  a  sense  of  decency.  Manners 
were  an  expression  of  morality. 

I  do  not  know  of  any  more  striking  contrast  to 
the  personality  of  Mrs.  Asquith  than  the  personality 
of  Catherine  Gladstone.  It  is  striking  because  the 
similarities  are  so  numerous.  They  not  only  filled  pre- 
cisely the  same  place  in  our  national  and  social  life,  but 
at  many  points  their  natures,  their  temperaments,  were 
identical.  Mrs.  Gladstone  was  all  rush  and  vivacity. 
She  hated  routine.  She  loved  adventure.  She  was  sud- 
den and  unexpected.  She  overflowed  with  good  nature. 
She  sparkled  with  vivacity.  She  loved  life,  loved  power, 
and  loved  crowds  of  people.  It  was  she,  not  Gladstone, 
who  hated  the  idea  of  resignation.  It  was  she  who  was 
1 '  ever  a  fighter. ' '  It  was  she  who  wanted  the  battle  and 
the  victory.  Like  Mrs.  Asquith,  too,  she  was  wearied  by 
bores  and  paid  no  attention  to  the  details  of  etiquette,  the 
mere  forms  of  convention.  She  had  ' '  nature. ' '  She  had 
1 '  social  courage. ' '  She ' ' let  herself  go, ' '  says  Father  Wag- 
gett,  but  adds,  "It  was  a  charming  creature  to  let  go." 


70  THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

In  her  life,  too,  as  in  Mrs.  Asquith's,  there  was 
a  time  when  Fashionable  Society  was  bitterly  opposed 
to  all  she  stood  for  in  politics,  and  a  time  when  a  Radical 
colleague  of  her  husband  deserted  the  standard  to  strike 
the  blow  that  meant  defeat. 

But  how  different  the  two  women — these  two  women 
who  were  so  like  at  a  score  of  points ! 

Mrs.  Gladstone  could  not  have  hung  a  caricature 
in  the  vicinity  of  a  crucifix.  She  could  not  have 
seen  amusement  in  wit  that  "made  a  butt  of  God." 
She  could  not  have  published  to  the  world  a  narra- 
tion of  her  love-affairs  and  her  confinements.    Why? 

Something  restrained  her  audacity,  something  re- 
pressed the  ebullience  of  her  high  spirits,  something 
controlled  her  impetuous  spontaneity. 

At  the  centre  of  her  life,  deep  below  the  flashing 
surface  of  her  social  existence,  was  a  profound  reverence 
for  the  spiritual  truth  of  humanity,  a  piercing  sense  of 
the  reality  of  the  Infinite,  a  pervasive  humility  of  soul. 
And  so,  unlike  Mrs.  Asquith,  who  thought  and  decided 
in  the  matter  of  bedroom  receptions,  it  is  written  of 
Catherine  Gladstone,  "Her  trust  in  the  guidance  of 
instinct  and  impulse  was  absolute.  Already,  while 
others  argued  the  way,  she  had  reached  the  goal." 

It  was  with  her  as  it  was  with  Goethe,  and  as  it  has 
never  been  with  Mrs.  Asquith;  an  inward  earnestness 
saved  her  from  all  vulgarities,  and  made  her  noble, 
beautifully  noble,  in  spite  of  all  her  eccentricities. 


A  STUDY  IN  CONTRAST  71 

The  youth  of  Goethe  was  filled  with  a  thousand 
trivialities — German  trivialities,  sentimental,  romantic, 
and  tailor-made  trivialities.  One  reads  that  record  not 
merely  with  impatience,  but  sometimes  even  with  dis- 
gust. He  is  not  only  a  foppish  philanderer  and  an  in- 
tellectual prig ;  he  is  utterly  insincere,  utterly  wanting  in 
the  virtues  of  the  gentleman. 

He  himself  came  to  wonder  how  his  character  emerged 
from  that  period,  and  how  his  genius  survived  it.  This 
pigmy,  how  did  he  become  a  giant? — this  ephemeron, 
how  did  he  become  immortal?  "Of  all  the  sons  of 
genius,"  says  Hume  Brown,  "none  has  been  freer  than 
Goethe  was  in  his  maturer  years  from  every  form  of 
vanity  and  self -consciousness."  How  did  this  come  to 
pass?  In  his  youth  he  might  have  been  one  of  the 
figures  in  such  a  book  as  Mrs.  Asquith's  biography; 
in  his  maturity  he  could  not  have  read  such  a  book 
without  nausea.  By  what  power  was  such  a  miracle 
worked? 

Goethe  himself  tells  us  that  it  was  "an  inward 
earnestness."  At  the  circumference  of  his  soul  was 
frivolity,  sentimentalism,  insincerity;  but  at  the  centre, 
waiting  to  save  him  when  he  would  be  still,  was  this 
inward  earnestness,  this  "instinct  for  self-mastery," 
this  feeling  that  life  was  a  great  thing,  a  high  thing,  a 
deep  thing,  a  divine  mystery,  and  that  the  work  of  life 
was  to  perfect  the  soul. 

It  is  for  lack  of  this  one  thing,  inward  earnestness, 


72  THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

this  one  thing  which  saved  Goethe,  this  one  thing 
that  made  Catherine  Gladstone  a  different  person  from 
Margot  Asquith,  that  society  is  now  drifting  so  far  out 
of  its  course. 


CHAPTER  VI 

ILL  EFFECTS 

It  is  something  to  have  an  influence  on  the  fortunes  of  man- 
kind; it  is  greatly  more  to  have  an  influence  on  their  intellects. 
— W.  S.  Landor. 

You  pass  by  a  little  child,  you  pass  by,  spiteful,  with  ugly 
words,  with  wrathful  heart;  you  may  not  have  noticed  the  child, 
but  he  has  seen  you,  and  your  image,  unseemly  and  ignoble, 
may  remain  in  his  defenceless  heart.  You  don't  know  it,  but 
you  may  have  sown  an  evil  seed  in  him  and  it  may  grow. — 
Dostoevsky. 

For  by  a  word  we  wound  a  thousand. — Sir  Thomas 
Browne. 

Lest  a  too  indulgent,  perhaps  I  may  be  allowed  to 
say  a  too  shallow,  reader  should  think  I  magnify  the 
importance  of  people  like  Mrs.  Asquith  and  Colonel 
Repington,  holding  it  better  to  ignore  them  than  further 
to  advertise  their  existence  by  reprobation  however  just, 
I  will  here  endeavour  to  show  how  far  the  influence  of 
such  characters  may  carry,  to  the  detriment  of  England 
and  the  progress  of  civilisation. 

Both  these  books,  the  Autobiography  and  the  Diaries, 

73 


74  THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

have  been  well  published.  Their  sales  have  been  prodi- 
gious. Here  in  the  British  Islands  they  have  had 
thousands  of  readers,  and  in  America  and  the  Dominions 
the  numbers  must  be  calculated  by  scores  of  thousands. 
Both  books,  in  two  different  ways,  appeal  to  an  almost 
universal  curiosity;  the  one  promises  insight  into  the 
social  mysteries  of  English  aristocracy,  the  other  insight, 
into  the  political  mysteries  of  allied  statesmanship 
during  the  crisis  of  the  World  War.  Colonel  Reping- 
ton's  social  gossip,  it  must  be  understood,  is  only  a 
comic  chorus  to  genuine  information  and  excellent 
criticism  concerning  a  vast  tragedy.  His  book  is  a  work, 
I  imagine,  which  no  serious  student  of  the  War  can 
afford  to  overlook.  For  myself,  knowing  something  of 
that  inner  history,  I  willingly  confess  that  I  read  these 
two  volumes  with  an  unflagging  interest. 

The  appeal,  then,  of  both  books  is  not  to  be  exag- 
gerated. It  is  natural  that  they  should  be  read  far  and 
wide.  They  are  genuine  histories.  In  America,  where 
those  of  us  who  seek  the  world's  peace  must  desire  men 
and  women  to  think  well  of  us,  and  in  our  Dominions, 
where  respect  and  affection  for  English  traditions  is  the 
very  centre  of  that  spontaneous  loyalty  which  holds  the 
Commonwealth  together,  these  books  have  carried  a 
very  important  message  from  England — a  message 
which  cannot  be  ignored  or  suppressed,  a  message 
which  has  penetrated  deeply,  a  message  which  is  not 
likely  to  be  forgotten  in  our  generation,  and  the  con- 


ILL  EFFECTS  75 

sequences  of  which  may  go  on  for  a  period  which  no  man 
can  measure. 

I  would  ask  the  reader  to  see  that  there  are  two  ways 
in  which  these  books  are  acting  on  the  minds  of  men  and 
women  all  over  the  world. 

First  of  all,  there  is  the  obvious  effect  on  people  of 
intelligence — contempt  of  English  aristocracy  and  con- 
tempt of  English  politics.  Second,  there  is  the  effect 
on  people  of  inferior  intelligence — imitation  of  our  worst 
qualities. 

Both  of  these  effects  are  bad.  We  must  deplore  the 
fact  that  because  of  these  two  books  thousands  of  intelli- 
gent people  all  over  the  world  are  thinking  of  us  with 
contempt;  and  equally  we  must  deplore  the  fact  that 
because  of  these  two  books  thousands  of  unintelligent 
people  are  confirmed  in  flippancy,  cynicism,  vulgarity, 
and  braggart  ostentation. 

As  an  example  of  the  first  effect,  I  will  quote  a  passage 
from  a  review  of  Mrs.  Asquith's  book  which  appeared  in 
The  New  Republic  of  America. 

After  a  scornful  examination  of  the  autobiography, 
holding  the  writer  up  to  the  ridicule  of  all  his  educated 
readers,  the  critic  pauses  at  the  end  of  his  analysis  to 
make  this  remark: 

And  yet  I  subscribe  myself  a  grateful  reader  of  Mrs. 
Asquith's  autobiography.  I  had  a  few  lingering  doubts 
as  to  the  great  social  tradition  of  English  politics,  the 
Saturday-to-Monday  refreshment  of  tired  statesmen  by 


76  THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

untiring  hostesses,  the  comradeship  of  aristocrats  and 
political  thinkers  and  souls.  But  this  lengthy  public 
dilatation  of  Mrs.  Asquith's  heart  has  settled  for  me  the 
old  notion  that  woman  ever  could  have,  much  less  ever 
had,  a  suitable  place  behind  the  throne.  Behind  the 
throne  of  man,  as  Mrs.  Asquith  exhibits  it,  there  may 
always  be  a  place  for  women  of  the  pillowing  variety, 
women  who  really  like  to  stand  waiting  with  the  sponge 
and  the  smelling-salts  and  the  towels.  But  for  an  aggres- 
sive personality  like  Mrs.  Asquith,  genuine  child  of  "a 
man  whose  vitality,  irritability,  energy,  and  impression- 
ability amounted  to  genius,"  this  false  role  of  subordina- 
tion has  turned  her  from  a  beaver  into  something  smaller 
and  less  pleasant,  and  exposed  her  to  the  perceptive 
as  a  pest.  Had  she  been  an  educated  woman,  and  dis- 
ciplined, and  yet  subordinate,  could  she  have  turned  her 
life  to  advantage?  I  suppose  so,  as  any  man  might. 
But  being  a  woman  born  into  a  society  where  her  game 
was  to  be  charming,  and  where  she  had  no  chance  to 
be  seriously  educated,  we  find  her  at  the  age  of  fifty- 
six  publishing  idiocies  that  Marie  Bashkirtseff  was  too 
sophisticated  to  utter  at  fourteen,  and  never  once  attain- 
ing Marie  Bashkirtseff 's  noble  realisation  that  "if  this 
book  is  not  the  exact,  the  absolute,  the  strict  truth,  it  has  no 
raison  d'etre." 

These  idiocies  and,  one  must  say,  vulgarities,  are 
not  of  themselves  important.  What  does  it  matter 
how  much  this  woman  tells  the  gaping  public  about  her 
flirtations,  her  self-estimates,  her  husband's  prayers,  and 
her  confinements?  The  thing  that  matters  is  to  see  a 
fund  of  human  nature  squandered  in  horrible  heedlessness 
on  the  enormous  trivialities  of  the  privileged  class. 

From  this  perfectly  just  and  contemptuous  criticism 
we  must  infer  that    there  are  numbers  of  educated 


ILL  EFFECTS  77 

Americans  whose  affection  for  England  has  been 
weakened,  and  who  have  perhaps  ceased  to  believe  that 
the  privileged  classes  in  England  have  any  contribution 
to  make  to  the  higher  life  of  the  human  race.  Such  an 
effect  I  regard  as  deplorable;  coming,  as  it  does,  at  a 
particularly  critical  juncture  of  inter-state  politics,  I 
do  not  think  I  exaggerate  in  saying  that  this  effect 
is  disastrous.  For  is  it  altogether  unreasonable  to 
suppose  that  if  there  existed  at  this  time  a  deep  affection 
and  a  profound  confidence  between  the  Republic  of  the 
United  States  and  the  British  Commonwealth  such  a 
great  step  might  be  taken  towards  disarmament  as 
might  lead  in  a  generation  to  the  peace  of  the  world? 
I  propose  in  the  next  chapters  to  show  that  both 
Mrs.  Asquith  and  Colonel  Repington  convey  a  false 
impression  of  English  society,  to  show,  at  any  rate,  that 
there  are  people  of  the  privileged  classes  in  these  islands 
mindful  of  their  great  responsibilities,  whose  lives  are 
beautiful,  unselfish,  useful — people  who  still  quietly 
maintain  beyond  the  reach  of  the  public  limelight  those 
noble  traditions  of  the  human  soul  which  have  dis- 
tinguished the  English  Gentry  at  almost  every  period  of 
our  history.  I  hope,  that  is  to  say,  that  I  may  be  able 
to  achieve  at  least  something  in  the  direction  of  miti- 
gating among  thoughtful  people  here  in  Great  Britain, 
and  in  the  Dominions,  and  in  the  United  States,  the 
unfortunate  impression  conveyed  by  Mrs.  Asquith  and 
Colonel  Repington. 


78  THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

Before  proceeding  to  that  pleasant  work,  I  would 
remind  the  reader  once  again  of  the  great  importance 
of  apparently  trivial  things. 

Let  him  pause  for  a  moment  to  consider  the  case 
of  Russia.  For  a  hundred  years  we  have  thought  of 
Russia  as  a  vast  military  power,  or  an  empire  groaning 
under  the  tyranny  of  an  autocrat,  or  a  country  in  which 
literature  and  art  were  manifesting  themselves  in  new 
and  brilliant  forms,  or  as  a  nation  seething  with  political 
ideas  of  a  wild  and  revolutionary  character. 

These  matters  were  great  enough,  obvious  enough, 
for  our  observation  and  our  interest.  We  should  have 
regarded  a  man  as  tiresome  who  told  us  that  the  one 
thing  in  Russia  worthy  of  our  attention  was  the  lack  of 
moral  earnestness  in  all  classes  of  that  human  chaos. 
But  this  fact,  nevertheless,  was  the  greatest  thing  in 
Russia;  everything  else  in  that  huge  empire  was  in  sober 
truth  but  as  so  much  spindrift  to  this  deep  groundswell 
of  the  Russian  tragedy.  There  was  one  who  saw  the 
truth,  one  who  perceived  "the  littleness  in  which  the 
greatness  of  human  life  is  hidden,"  one  who  prophesied 
years  ago  the  universal  calamity  which  has  plunged 
his  country  into  abject  misery,  and  is  still  hanging  like  a 
tempest  over  the  uneasy  peace  of  Versailles ;  but  because 
he  did  not  come  before  us  as  a  Nihilist,  or  a  strident 
philosopher  of  Bolshevism,  because  he  had  nothing  to 
say  about  the  great  rivers  of  Damascus,  and  insisted 
only  on  the  need  of  Jordan,  because,  that  is,  he  was 


ILL  EFFECTS  79 

nothing  picturesque  and  striking  and  new,  only  a  moral- 
ist, a  moralist  insisting  on  the  vexatious  necessity  for 
truth  in  the  inward  parts — what  a  provincialism! — 
what  a  platitude ! — we  ignored  his  message  and  missed 
the  secret  of  Russia's  woe. 

This  man,  Fyodor  Dostoevsky,  makes  one  of  the 
characters  in  The  Possessed  speak  as  follows : 

.  .  .  crime,  is  no  longer  insanity,  but  simply  common 
sense,  almost  a  duty;  anyway,  a  gallant  protest. 

The  Russian  God  has  already  been  vanquished  by  cheap 
vodka.  The  peasants  are  drunk,  the  mothers  are  drunk, 
the  children  are  drunk,  the  churches  are  empty.  .  .  . 

Oh,  this  generation  has  only  to  grow  up. 

Ah,  what  a  pity  there's  no  proletariat!  But  there  will 
be,  there  will  be,  we  are  going  that  way. 

.  .  .  One  or  two  generations  of  vice  are  essential  now; 
monstrous,  abject  vice  by  which  a  man  is  transformed 
into  a  loathsome,  cruel,  egoistic  reptile. 

We  will  proclaim  destruction  .  .  .  we'll  set  fires  going. 
We'll  set  legends  going.  Every  scurvy  "group"  will  be 
of  use.  .  .  .  There  will  be  an  upheaval.  There's  going 
to  be  such  an  upset  as  the  world  has  never  seen  before. 
.  .  .  Russia  will  be  overwhelmed  with  darkness,  the  earth 
will  weep  for  its  old  gods. 

The  important  thing  in  Russia  was  not  the  political 
government,  but  the  common  everyday  fact  that  the 
peasants  were  drunk,  that  the  mothers  were  drunk, 
that  the  children  were  drunk,  and  that  the  priests,  with 
their  mistresses  and  their  illegitimate  children,  were 
drunk  too. 


80  THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

"Listen,"  cries  Dostoevsky's  character,  announcing 
a  truth  of  the  highest  importance.  "I've  seen  a  child 
of  six  years  old  leading  home  his  drunken  mother,  whilst 
she  swore  at  him  with  foul  words." 

Which  was  the  greater  peril  of  Russia  in  those  days, 
despotism  or  immorality,  an  absolutist  Tsar  or  a 
drunken  mother? 

There  is  a  despotism  in  Russia  at  the  present  time. 
One  of  the  hungry  citizens  of  Moscow,  pointing  to  the 
Kremlin,  said  to  Mr.  Bertrand  Russell,  "In  there  they 
have  enough  to  eat."  Always  there  must  be  a  privi- 
ledged  class,  always  there  must  be  masters.  Revolution 
can  do  nothing  but  displace  one  authority  by  another. 
The  character  of  civilisation  depends  absolutely  on  the 
moral  character  of  that  authority,  whatever  it  calls 
itself,  and  that  moral  character  will  always  chiefly  be 
determined  by  the  moral  character  of  the  mass. 

Do  we  realise  that  the  "world  tragedy"  of  Russia 
is  mainly  the  tragedy  of  two  cities?  The  millions  of 
peasants  are  neither  hungry  nor  cold.  The  change  of 
government  has  meant  little  to  them ;  their  lives  are  not 
altered,  nor  their  fortunes.  The  crushing  tragedy  is  felt 
mainly  in  the  two  principal  cities  of  that  vast  empire, 
Moscow  and  Petrograd,  where  people  are  not  only 
hungry  and  cold,  but  intimidated  by  a  worse  form  of 
slavery  than  ever  existed  under  the  Tsars. 

How  is  this  possible?  How  are  a  few  fanatical  fol- 
lowers of  Karl  Marx  able  to  hold  millions  of  people  in 


THE    RT.    HON.   W.    E.    GLADSTONE 
1858 

From  a  portrait  by  Watts  in  the  National  Portrait  Gallery 


ILL  EFFECTS  81 

the  iron  grip  of  a  despotism  which  crushes  both  soul 
and  body? 

The  answer  is  that  the  multitudes  composing  the 
Russian  Empire  long  ago  have  ceased  to  feel  the  infi- 
nite importance  of  moral  ideas.  Because  there  was  no 
cleavage  in  their  minds  between  right  and  wrong  there  is 
now  no  vigorous  public  opinion,  no  moral  force  against 
which  tyranny  of  any  kind  would  oppose  itself  in  vain. 
Russia  has  a  thousand  qualities  which  deserve  the 
admiration  of  mankind,  but  lacking  this  one  quality  of 
moral  earnestness  it  is  stricken  with  death. 

Of  all  intellectual  shallowness  none  is  more  disastrous 
to  the  higher  life  of  the  human  race  than  that  which 
ignores  the  attitude  of  average  men  and  women  to  the 
simplest  questions  of  right  and  wrong. 

"Steadily,  silently,  the  inevitable  process  of  change 
goes  on,  and  neither  the  individual  himself  nor  any  of 
those  nearest  to  him  may  notice  how,  in  the  one  case,  his 
character  is  being  strengthened  and  elevated,  and,  in 
the  other  case,  is  being  weakened  and  lowered." 

6 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE  OTHER  SIDE 

Everyone  carries  with  him  a  certain  moral  atmosphere, 
which  to  a  great  extent  determines  the  relations  into  which  he 
comes  with  his  fellow  men.  .  .  .  Thus  men  are  continually 
shedding  off,  as  it  were,  some  part  of  their  personality  into 
the  society  around  them.  And  the  tone  of  this  society  is  the 
result,  not  so  much  of  the  deliberate  attempt  of  the  members  of 
it  to  influence  each  other,  as  of  the  unconscious  action  and 
reaction  of  their  characters  .  .  .  the  whole  weight  of  the  evil 
that  is  in  our  society  is  dragging  us  down,  and  the  whole  force 
of  the  good  that  is  in  it  is  helping  us  up. — Edward  Caird. 

Moral  principles  rarely  act  powerfully  upon  the  world, 
except  by  way  of  example  or  ideals. — Lecky. 

It  is  one  of  their  many  deplorable  consequences  that 
the  books  of  Mrs.  Asquith  and  Colonel  Repington,  while 
perfectly  true  of  the  sets  in  which  their  writers  move, 
quite  cruelly  misrepresent  English  society  as  a  whole. 
You  may  easily  see  how  false  is  the  impression  these 
books  convey  if  you  recall  for  a  moment  the  immense 
volume  of  devoted  service  rendered  by  people  of  leisure 
during  the  War.  A  foreign  reader  might  well  conclude 
from  Colonel  Repington's  book  that  England  took  that 

82 


THE  OTHER  SIDE  83 

great  struggle  with  fun  and  frolic,  and  that  her  one 
anxiety,  while  enjoying  a  "good  time,"  or  as  good  a 
time  as  the  circumstances  permitted,  was  to  defeat 
Germany  in  the  field. 

There  was  another  anxiety.  Never  before  in  the 
history  of  England  did  so  deep  and  earnest  a  desire 
to  minister  to  the  soul  of  humanity  move  upon  the 
waters  of  our  national  life.  Never  before  were  all 
classes  of  the  community  in  closer  touch.  And  this 
great  labour,  so  far  as  aristocracy  is  concerned,  was 
done,  not  by  fashionable  people  who  hurried  to  the 
photographer  in  their  nurse's  dress  or  their  Red  Cross 
uniform,  not  by  people  who  discovered  in  the  War  an 
opportunity  to  display  their  talents  as  actors  and  act- 
resses, but  by  people  who  were  doing  solid  work  before 
the  War,  and  who  are  still  quietly  toiling  for  the  higher 
life  of  the  human  race. 

It  may  help  to  mitigate  some  of  the  worst  conse- 
quences of  Colonel  Repington's  book  if  I  set  down  here  a 
few  memories  of  London  during  the  War;  a  few  mem- 
ories of  people  in  my  own  acquaintance  who  took  part  in 
that  vast  labour  of  humanitarianism  which  transfigured 
the  national  life  at  a  period  of  enormous  stress  and 
almost  unimaginable  sorrow. 

I  recall  a  conversation  with  Mr.  J.  R.  Clynes  in  the 
year  191 7.  He  spoke  hopefully  of  the  end  of  the  War, 
and  hopefully  of  the  reconstruction  period  which  would 
succeed  our  military  activity.     He  based  his  optimism 


84  THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

solely  on  the  good  understanding  which  had  then  come 
to  exist  between  the  various  classes  of  the  community. 
The  War,  he  said,  had  introduced  the  classes  into  a 
domestic  intimacy  which  was  making  for  an  affectionate 
understanding  of  their  difficulties. 

This  unity  of  spirit  seemed  to  him  so  wonderful  a 
thing  that  he  refused  to  believe  the  nation  would  ever 
again  revert  to  the  crudities  of  class  hatred.  We  are 
already  in  some  danger  of  losing  this  great  gain. 

Little,  I  think,  is  known  to  the  public  of  the  work 
done  by  a  body  of  English  ladies  to  convince  the 
soldiers  of  our  Dominions  that  England  cared  for  them 
and  was  profoundly  mindful  of  their  self-sacrifice.  This 
work  is  eminently  suitable  for  mention  in  the  present 
place,  since  it  took  the  admirable  form  of  introducing 
the  soldiers  of  our  Dominions  into  the  best  home-life 
of  England — a  home-life  which  some  people  might  say 
had  ceased  to  exist.  Its  form  was  purely  domestic.  It 
was  as  intimate  as  hospitality  of  that  nature  could 
possibly  be.  Because  of  this  domestic  and  intimate 
character,  it  did  more  for  England,  I  think,  at  any  rate 
more  for  the  great  moral  principles  of  the  British  Com- 
monwealth, than  any  other  philanthropic  work  of  a 
patriotic  nature. 

It  is  impossible  for  me  to  mention  the  names  of  all 
those  ladies  who  rendered  this  immeasurable  service 
to  the  good  name  of  England ;  the  reader  must  kindly 
bear  in  mind  that  I  set  down  here  only  the  names  of 


THE  OTHER  SIDE  85 

those  few  who  are  either  known  to  me  personally,  or 
whose  extraordinary  influence  came  to  my  knowledge 
from  actual  experience.  There  was  a  great  body  of 
people  whose  excellent  work  did  not  come  within  the 
narrow  range  of  my  own  small  life,  and  whose  services 
may  well  have  been  as  great,  or  greater,  than  those  to 
which,  for  the  purpose  of  my  requirements,  I  shall  now 
refer.  These  good  and  noble  women  will  not  resent  the 
omission  of  their  names  from  my  pages;  the  gratitude 
of  men  and  women  in  all  parts  of  the  British  Empire  is 
their  ample  reward.  I  am  more  likely  to  offend  those 
ladies  of  my  acquaintance  whose  names  do  appear  in 
these  pages,  since,  even  for  a  good  purpose,  they  dislike 
any  public  mention  of  their  work.  But  this  risk  I  am 
content  to  run,  in  order  to  convince  as  wide  a  public  as 
I  can  reach,  both  here  and  across  the  seas,  that  aris- 
tocracy in  England  has  not  gone  over  bag  and  baggage 
to  the  enemy  of  Christian  civilisation. 

In  order  that  the  officers  from  our  Dominions  should 
not  feel  themselves  strangers  and  aliens  at  the  heart 
of  the  Empire,  a  number  of  ladies  organised  a  system  of 
hospitality  which  aimed  to  be  as  free  from  the  spirit  of 
institutionalism  as  loving  service  and  a  deep  concern  for 
the  good  name  of  England  could  make  it.  The  officers 
were  to  be  sought  out  in  camps,  barracks,  clubs,  hostels, 
hospitals,  and  convalescent  homes.  They  were  to  be 
invited  to  visit  certain  of  the  best  houses  in  London. 
Their  hostesses  were  to  entertain  them  just  as  they 


86  THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

entertained  their  own  friends.  And  those  officers  who 
expressed  a  desire  to  see  something  of  English  country 
life  were  to  be  the  guests  of  ladies  in  all  parts  of  the 
United  Kingdom.  In  short,  officers  from  our  Domin- 
ions arriving  in  England  were  to  be  treated  like  the 
friends  and  relations  of  the  very  best  families  in  England. 

I  will  mention  the  names  of  a  few  ladies  who  took 
part  in  this  work  merely  to  convince  the  reader  that 
the  names  in  Colonel  Repington's  book  do  not  by  any 
means  exhaust  the  peerage.  But  when  I  say  that  in 
Lady  Harrowby's  organisation  alone  there  were  695 
hostesses  who  entertained  these  officers,  the  reader  will 
see  how  impossible  it  is  for  me  to  mention  more  than  a 
very  few  names. 

But  here  are  these  few  names:  The  Duchess  of 
Argyll,  the  Duchess  of  Atholl,  the  Duchess  of  Norfolk, 
the  Duchess  of  Wellington,  the  Marchioness  of  Win- 
chester, the  Marchioness  of  Salisbury,  the  Countess  of 
Harrowby,  the  Countess  of  Hardwicke,  the  Countess  of 
Strathmore,  the  Countess  of  Cromer,  the  Countess 
of  Derby,  the  Countess  of  Glasgow,  the  Countess  of 
Yarborough,  the  Countess  Fortescue,  the  Countess  of 
Dunmore,  the  Dowager  Countess  of  Jersey,  the  Dow- 
ager Countess  of  Clanwilliam,  Lady  Hambleden,  Lady 
Ampthill,  Lady  Northcote,  Lady  Carmichael,  Lady 
Zouche,  Lady  Portman,  Lady  Farnham,  Lady  Har- 
court,  Lady  Gladstone,  Lady  de  l'lsle  and  Dudley,  Lady 
Dunleath,  Lady  Hilda  Murray,  Lady  Howard  de  Wal- 


THE  OTHER  SIDE  87 

den,  Lady  Doreen  Long,  Lady  Frances  Ryder  (a  great 
driving  force  in  more  than  one  organisation),  Lady 
Mary  Morrison,  Lady  Alice  Fergusson,  Lady  Mabel 
Kenyon  Slaney,  Lady  Angela  Campbell,  the  Hon.  Mrs. 
Henry  Edwardes,  the  Hon.  Mrs.  Hope  Morley,  the 
Hon.  Margaret  Colville  (who  also  worked  unsparingly  to 
trace  missing  officers),  the  Hon.  Harriet  Phipps,  Mrs. 
Cuninghame  of  Craigends,  Miss  Macdonald  of  the  Isles, 
Mrs.  Abel  Smith,  of  Cole  Orton,  Miss  Agnes  Bowen, 
daughter  of  a  late  Governor  of  Queensland,  and  the  two 
daughters  of  Sir  Arthur  Lawley. 

It  would  only  bother  the  reader  to  give  the  statistics 
of  the  various  organisations  with  which  these  ladies 
worked,  but  when  I  say  that  one  of  them  alone  was 
responsible  for  hospitality  to  100,000  officers,  something 
of  the  magnitude  of  the  work  will  be  understood.  I 
prefer  to  give  a  few  slight  sketches  of  these  hostesses, 
in  order  that  the  reader  may  understand  the  character 
of  the  hospitality  extended  to  our  Dominion  soldiers. 
It  was  the  nature  of  this  hospitality  which  made  it 
different  from  almost  every  other  form  of  war  work, 
and  it  is  by  understanding  its  nature  or  character 
that  the  reader  will  best  enter  into  a  truer  knowledge 
of  English  social  life. 

Lady  Harrowby,  who  with  her  daughter,  Lady 
Frances  Ryder,  and  a  staff  of  ladies,  did  a  vast  work  of 
organisation,  besides  acting  as  hostess  in  many  enter- 
tainments, tells  me  that,  looking  back  over  the  period 


88  THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

of  the  War,  she  is  inclined  to  envy  Mrs.  Henry 
Edwardes  more  than  anybody  else  who  took  part  in 
offering  hospitality  to  our  Dominion  soldiers.  The 
reason  for  this  noble  envy  will  declare  itself  in  the 
narrative  which  follows. 

This  Mrs.  Edwardes  is  pinned  to  her  chair  by  rheu- 
matoid arthritis  as  effectually  as  Prometheus  to  his  rock. 
She  can  lift  her  hands  a  few  inches,  and  that  is  all.  In 
everything  else  she  is  helpless.  Never  once  before  the 
War  did  I  hear  her  utter  a  single  complaint,  and  since 
the  War  she  is  even  inclined  to  bless  her  illness,  for  by 
its  very  nature  it  enabled  her  to  enter  into  the  closest 
possible  intimacy  with  her  visitors.  She  could  do  no- 
thing to  amuse  them ;  she  could  do  everything  to  know 
them.  Unable  to  attend  meetings  or  to  take  part  in  the 
mechanism  of  organisation,  this  charming  woman,  who 
has  known  courts  and  capitals,  and  who  is  so  well  read 
and  so  spiritually  wise,  remained  in  her  chair,  and  round 
that  chair  in  her  drawing-room  gathered  officers  from 
every  quarter  of  the  British  Commonwealth,  telling  her 
about  their  homes,  and  listening  to  her  good  counsel 
with  reverence  and  affection. 

That  chair  in  the  drawing-room  of  Herbert  Crescent 
became  for  me  a  veritable  throne  of  England,  and  the 
stooping  lady,  clothed  in  beautiful  white  draperies  and 
old  lace,  who  sat  there  surrounded  by  soldiers  from 
beyond  the  seas,  seemed  to  me  a  reincarnation  of  the 
Victorian  spirit  of  domestic  life. 


THE  OTHER  SIDE  89 

Her  graciousness,  her  exceeding  gentleness,  her  per- 
fect sympathy  with  human  nature,  are  all  strung 
together  by  a  vigorous  intellectual  good  sense  which 
gives  power  to  her  sweetness.  No  woman  could  be 
more  tender,  none  more  free  from  sentimentalism. 
She  is  wise,  but  she  is  infinitely  sweet.  A  profound 
and  beautiful  spiritual  life  is  the  secret  of  her  attractive 
power. 

The  reader  will  perceive  that  I  do  not  exaggerate 
the  national  and  imperial  influence  of  this  good  woman, 
whose  name  finds  no  mention  in  the  pages  of  Mrs. 
Asquith  and  Colonel  Repington ;  if  he  will  kindly  glance 
over  the  following  quotations  which  I  make  at  random 
from  the  thousands  of  letters  written  by  Dominion 
soldiers,  and  also  by  their  mothers  in  distant  lands, 
which  Mrs.  Edwardes  received  during  the  War,  and  is 
receiving  to  this  day. 

One  officer  writes  of  a  most  gallant  dead  comrade: 

Among  the  papers  he  carried  was  a  request  that  should 
he  be  killed  in  action  he  would  like  one  of  his  friends  to 
write  and  let  you  know.  .  .  .  He  told  me  once  that  his 
chief  pride  in  winning  his  decorations  was  that  you  would 
know  he  had  tried  to  make  good. 

An  Australian  mother  who  had  visited  England 
wrote  to  Mrs.  Edwardes,  saying: 

Because  I  was  a  stranger  and  you  made  me  feel  so  much 
at  home  and  so  very  happy  with  you,  I  have  tried  to  make 
the  girls  who  are  so  bravely  coming  12,000  miles  to  marry 


90  THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

our  Australian  soldiers  feel  that  in  me  they  have  a  real 
friend ;  so  you  see  how  far  your  influence  has  reached. 

No  wonder  that  a  South  African  soldier  should  write 
to  this  noble  lady  in  the  following  words: 

I  leave  England  to-day  with  a  heart  overflowing  with 
gratitude  to  and  affection  for  my  mother  country.  .  .  . 
You  have  done  more  to  bind  the  Empire  together  by  your 
kindness  and  sympathy  and  friendship  .  .  .  than  states- 
manship can  ever  hope  to  achieve. 

From  the  mother  of  a  fallen  Canadian  came  this 
letter: 

I  hope  these  few  flowers  will  convey  to  you  a  little 
of  the  gratitude  I  find  so  hard  to  express,  for  all  your 
loving  sympathy  and  kindness  to  me.  All  my  life  your 
goodness  will  remain  as  one  of  the  brightest  memories  in 
my  darkest  hour. 

It  is  not  given  to  every  woman  to  have  had  such  perfect 
love,  friendship,  and  understanding  as  my  son  gave  me, 
and  although  my  pride  in  the  knowledge  of  his  having 
done  his  duty  so  nobly  is  great,  there  are  hours  when  the 
thought  that  I  shall  never  see  him  again  is  almost  more 
than  I  can  bear. 

You  may  see  what  she  was  to  these  superb  soldiers 
and  their  mothers,  and  what  her  gentleness  meant  to  the 
Empire,  when  you  know  that  an  Australian  could  write 
to  her  from  the  trenches  as  "My  dear  English  Mother." 
A  Canadian  exclaims  in  a  letter  after  an  action,  "How 
deeply  I  feel  towards  you  and  other  splendid  women 


THE  OTHER  SIDE  91 

of  your  class  in  England!"  A  South  African  mother 
writes  thanking  her  for  kindness  to  her  son,  and  for  her 
kindness  to  ' '  all  other  Colonials  who  perhaps  have  no 
mother  to  write  for  them." 

What  a  wonderful  work  for  England!  How  silent, 
how  unknown!  Picture  to  yourself  the  London  of 
those  years — the  feasting  at  restaurants,  the  roaring 
music-halls,  the  rackety  night-clubs,  the  jests  and  anec- 
dotes at  such  dinner-tables  as  Colonel  Repington 
frequented  as  a  relief  to  his  work ;  picture  the  streets  as 
we  knew  them  in  those  days — the  procession  of  motor- 
cars, the  parade  of  fashionable  people,  the  crowds  of 
prostitutes,  the  rush  of  newsboys,  the  glitter  of  shop 
windows,  the  flags  flying  from  the  house-tops,  the  sense 
everywhere  of  a  carnival  in  mid-Lent,  of  a  brass  band 
in  Gethsemane ;  all  this  in  the  public  streets,  and  here 
in  a  little  house  in  Knightsbridge,  men  from  every  part 
of  England's  vast  Empire  gathered  round  the  chair  of  a 
frail  and  suffering  woman,  one  of  the  few  remaining 
friends  of  Queen  Victoria,  telling  her  of  their  homes 
across  the  seas,  their  mothers,  their  sisters,  and  finding 
in  her  words  a  music  that  was  like  the  sound  of  a 
mother's  voice. 

Many  of  those  gallant  men,  suddenly  ordered  back 
to  the  carnage  of  the  trenches,  calling  in  Herbert  Cres- 
cent to  say  good-bye  to  the  woman  who  had  meant  so 
much  to  them,  and  finding  that  she  had  been  carried  up 
to  her  bed,  would  ask  whether  they  might  not  be  allowed 


92  THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

to  see  her,  if  only  for  a  moment.  They  wanted  her  to 
be  their  last  memory  of  England. 

In  this  way  it  happened  that  many  an  Anzac,  Cana- 
dian, and  South  African  was  conducted  to  the  invalid's 
bedroom  and  received  her  blessing  kneeling  at  her  bed- 
side. The  reverence  they  felt  for  her  was  unbounded ; 
their  love  for  her  was  a  part  of  their  love  for  England. 
"You  have  made  so  many  of  us  feel,"  wrote  one,  "that 
England  really  does  care." 

What  strikes  me  so  much  in  these  letters  from  the 
battlefields  is  their  cheerfulness.  Men  wrote  to  her 
from  the  front  trenches,  in  conditions  of  inexpressible 
horror,  wishing  her  "A  Merry  Christmas,"  inquiring 
after  her  health,  and  describing  a  battle  in  the  terms 
of  the  football  field.  ' '  I  am  always  afraid  of  being  a 
nuisance,"  writes  one  young  officer,  in  a  preface  to  his 
spirited  account  of  a  great  fight.  "I  am  feeling  fine," 
says  another,  after  a  terrible  battle,  "this  life  agrees 
with  me."  And  another,  after  recounting  the  tale  of  a 
German  attack,  assures  her  that  "life  here  is  very  com- 
fortable." They  wanted  to  cheer  her  up.  In  none  of 
these  thousands  of  letters  have  I  come  across  a  single 
whine,  the  smallest  grouse,  the  least  cry  for  sympathy. 
The  most  that  a  young  Canadian  will  say  after  a  terrible 
battle  at  night  is  the  comment, "He  is  a  fool  who  says 
there  is  no  God!" 

I  think  those  men  must  have  realised  how  deeply, 
how  truly,  she  felt  for  them,  when  her  letters  reached 


THE  OTHER  SIDE  93 

them  in  France — dictated  letters,  but  almost  always 
with  a  few  last  words  written  by  her  own  poor  tortured 
hand;  the  hand  that  was  once  so  beautiful,  the  hand 
which  sculptors  copied  in  Rome — a  few  words  of  bless- 
ing and  affection.  ' '  How  can  I  thank  you  sufficiently," 
writes  a  South  African,  "for  the  dear  little  diary  you 
sent  me  as  a  keepsake.  I  will  carry  it  with  me  always 
while  campaigning." 

Think  of  those  little  gifts  crossing  the  seas  from 
this  London  drawing-room  to  soldiers  of  the  Empire 
fighting  in  every  quarter  of  the  globe!  One  is  so 
tempted  to  forget  that  the  night-club  was  not  the 
only  form  of  hospitality  which  London  offered  to  the 
sons  of  the  British  Commonwealth. 

To  this  day  Mrs.  Edwardes  is  receiving  letters  from 
all  parts  of  the  Empire.  For  instance,  an  Australian 
tells  of  his  home-coming  in  these  words:  "I  received  a 
warm  welcome  from  all  except  my  own  daughter,  who 
turned  me  down  absolutely.  It  took  me  six  months 
to  woo  her,  but  now  she  owns  me  as  her  Daddy."  An- 
other, writing  from  Canada  of  the  unforgettable  draw- 
ing-room in  London,  and  of  the  people  he  met  there, 
speaks  of  "that  ideal  circle."  They  all  speak  of  cher- 
ishing their  memories,  and  describe  how  they  tell  their 
womanfolk  of  her  unfailing  goodness. 

"Alone  in  London."  To  those  who  have  met  Mrs. 
Edwardes  these  words  have  no  meaning.  .  .  .  We  can 
never  forget  our  reception;  it  was  a  continual   home 


94  THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

coming  of  a  long-lost  but  most  welcome  son.  London! 
— who  can  describe  it  ? — and  the  country,  with  its  abbeys, 
cathedrals,  castles,  country,  and  farmhouses,  its  grass  and 
gardens.  .  .  .  Links  have  been  forged  that  can  never  be 
broken. 

One  little  matter  in  the  hospitality  of  Mrs.  Edwardes 
seems  to  me  worthy  of  mention.  At  the  outset,  she  who 
had  originated  this  noble  idea  of  personal  hospitality 
to  overseas  officers  decided  to  permit  smoking  in  her 
drawing-room.  This  concession  was  an  act  of  real 
sacrifice.  Tobacco  smoke  affected  her  health.  But 
somebody  came  to  her  and  said:  "You  are  wrong  to 
allow  smoking.  It  destroys  the  idea  of  a  lady's  draw- 
ing-room. It  makes  your  hospitality  that  of  a  club  or 
a  hostel.  The  men  prefer  to  feel  that  they  are  in  an 
English  home — in  a  lady's  drawing-room."  From  that 
day  smoking  was  restricted  to  a  room  on  the  ground 
floor,  and  those  who  mounted  the  stairs  to  the  drawing- 
room  did  so  for  the  pleasures  of  conversation.  As  Mrs. 
Edwardes  knows  a  great  number  of  people  in  society, 
and  as  everybody  delights  to  do  her  honour,  the  soldiers 
of  our  Dominion  met  in  that  drawing-room  some  of 
the  best  representatives  of  English  intellectual  life,  and 
many  of  the  most  charming  women  of  the  Old  Guard  in 
aristocracy. 

Lady  Harrowby  observed  the  same  rule  about  smok- 
ing in  her  house  in  Grosvenor  Place.  Soldiers  from 
overseas  found  her  to  be  one  of  the  kindest  and  cheerful- 


THE  OTHER  SIDE  95 

est  women  in  London,  but  a  martinet  in  the  matter  of 
social  manners.  She  does  not  smoke,  and  her  drawing- 
room,  filled  with  beautiful  flowers  and  beautiful  furni- 
ture, is  not  a  smoking-room.  She  was  delighted  to 
crowd  her  room  with  soldiers,  but  for  conversation,  or 
music,  or  dancing.  She  showed  them  a  room,  with  a 
balcony  over  the  street,  where  smoking  was  allowed, 
and  without  an  exception  her  guests  gladly  acquiesced 
in  her  rule. 

The  truth  is  that  this  little  rule  indicates  very  happily 
the  idea  which  inspired  all  this  boundless  hospitality. 
It  was  the  hospitality  of  the  English  home  at  its  very 
best,  and  to  this  day,  in  the  houses  where  the  best 
traditions  of  English  home  life  are  observed,  no  one 
dreams  of  smoking  in  the  drawing-room,  and,  moreover, 
the  ladies  themselves  do  not  smoke.  Let  me  confess 
that  there  have  been  times  in  my  life  when  I  have  found 
this  rule  irksome;  but  let  me  also  acknowledge  with 
gratitude  how  keenly  I  have  appreciated  the  sweet 
blessings  of  tobacco  after  the  beneficent  abstinence  of 
several  hours  in  a  drawing-room. 

Lady  Harrowby  is  a  philosopher  in  these  matters. 
Her  whole  life  has  a  thesis.  She  believes  that  every 
convention  should  be  challenged  for  its  raison  d'itrc, 
but  that,  passing  that  challenge,  each  should  be  reso- 
lutely observed.  This  is  to  say,  she  regards  the  reason- 
able rules  and  regulations  of  society  as  beneficent; 
she  holds  that  their  observance  is  essential  to  the  right- 


96  THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

ful  tone  of  society  and  good  for  the  discipline  of  individ- 
ual character.  She  is  firmly  opposed  to  the  anarchy  of 
licence ;  she  is  a  stern  unbending  champion  of  restraint 
and  dignity. 

Her  spirit  shows  itself  in  her  appearance;  she  is 
tall  and  impressive,  with  something  regal  in  her  carriage, 
her  manner  candid  and  frank,  but  not  impulsive.  All 
her  emotions  are  well  under  intellectual  control.  She 
makes  one  feel  how  honest  she  is,  how  real,  how  straight, 
how  fearless,  how  willing  to  be  kind  and  helpful;  but 
always,  until  intimacy  is  established,  the  dignity  in  her 
presence  seems  to  stand  guard  over  the  citadel  of  her 
affections.  It  is  only  her  closest  friends  who  know  how 
loving  Lady  Harrowby  can  be. 

The  reader  might  suppose  that  a  lady  so  formidable 
and  strict  would  perhaps  rather  frighten  the  overseas 
Colonial  soldier,  freed  from  the  awful  inhumanity  of  the 
trenches  for  a  few  days'  leave  in  London — the  London 
so  full  of  free  and  easy  carnival  for  those  with  money  in 
their  pockets.  It  shows,  I  think,  how  eminently  the 
heart  of  man  is  domestic,  that  a  woman  of  Lady  Harrow- 
by's  character  should  have  made  a  profound  impression 
on  her  guests.  They  loved  coming  to  her  house.  She 
and  her  daughter  (the  two  ladies  are  like  sisters)  became 
in  the  eyes  of  thousands  of  Colonial  soldiers  ideal 
representatives  of  English  social  life  at  its  best — a 
life  of  warmth,  friendliness,  and  bright  good  cheer, 
but  a  life  of  refinement,  virtue,  good  manners,  moral 


THE  OTHER  SIDE  97 

sweetness,  and  great  social  dignity.  I  mean,  these 
men  from  every  quarter  of  the  Empire,  and  drawn  from 
almost  every  class  of  their  various  communities,  found 
themselves  not  only  perfectly  at  ease  in  Lady  Harrow- 
by's  house,  but  perfectly  happy  in  that  atmosphere  of 
sweetness  and  restraint,  where  an  attitude  of  reverence 
towards  women  was  as  natural  as  irreverence  in  a  night- 
club. 

But  of  this  let  some  of  the  letters  speak: 

We  all  look  upon  you  as  a  personal  friend. 

I'd  willingly  go  through  the  black  nightmare  of  Ypres 
again  for  all  the  kindness  I  have  received  since  I  returned. 

I  am  off  to  France  this  afternoon,  and  I  really  feel 
I  have  much  more  to  fight  for  than  ever  before. 

You  open  your  houses  to  us  and  you  ask  us  to  your 
table.  By  doing  so  you  lay  us  under  a  chivalrous  obliga- 
tion to  rise  to  the  best  that  we  feel  and  know  within  our- 
selves, and  so  you  bring  out,  perhaps  without  knowing  it, 
the  best  that  is  in  us. 

Do  not  for  one  moment  ever  doubt  the  value  morally 
and  religiously  of  your  work. 

The  thought  one  has  about  all  this  is  how  to  make 
some  return.  Probably  such  a  return  can  be  best  made  in 
France! 

When  we  get  back  to  Australia,  one  of  the  memories 
of  England  that  will  be  very  dear  to  us,  and  which  we 
will  not  want  to  forget,  is  the  welcome  that  the  homes 
of  England  have  given  to  the  Colonials. 

Your  reward  is  the  knowledge  that  you  have  given  so 
many  of  us  "Home  Life,"  kept  us  straight,  and,  above  all, 
helped  to  keep  the  Empire  together. 

The  other  night  our  Colonel  spoke  about  what  the 


98  THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

British  women  had  done  and  were  doing.  He  called 
for  three  cheers  for  them,  and  I  wish  you  could  have  heard 
it.     It  was  some  prolonged  noise. 

Finally,  let  this  letter  written  by  an  Australian  lady 
witness  to  the  relief  and  gratitude  which  came  to  the 
mothers  and  wives  of  Dominion  soldiers  on  hearing  of 
their  visits  to  Lady  Harrowby  and  her  friends. 

What  I  want  to  assure  you  of  is  the  deep  gratitude 
we  Australian  women  feel  towards  those  women  in  Eng- 
land who  are  good  to  our  boys.  Not  to  be  able  to  see 
them  on  furlough,  to  nurse  them  when  ill-,  to  comfort  them 
when  limbs  and  eyes  were  lost,  to  feel  12,000  miles  of 
separation,  is  breaking  our  women.  They  just  close  their 
eyes  and  work.  .  .  . 

It  is  invaluable,  your  work.  None  of  these  men  to 
whom  you  have  been  so  kind  will  ever  again  feel  anything 
but  warm  friendly  gratitude  to  English  people.  .  .  . 
Deep  in  our  hearts,  I  think,  we  all  judge  a  nation  by  its 
home  life. 

In  the  case  of  Lady  Harrowby's  home  life,  its  business 
activity  must  have  impressed  the  Dominion  soldier. 
Lady  Frances  Ryder,  for  example,  was  not  only  the 
principal  driving  force  in  her  mother's  work  of  organis- 
ing hospitality,  but  she  was  also  secretary  to  the  A.  D. 
M.  S.  of  Australia  in  the  matter  of  convalescent  leave 
for  officers  of  the  A.  I.  F.  and  exercised  the  greatest 
personal  care  in  finding  suitable  hostesses  in  all  specially 
difficult  cases.  Her  activity  was  the  wonder  of  her 
friends  and  the  admiration  of  the  Dominion  soldiers. 


THE  OTHER  SIDE  99 

It  is  characteristic  of  Lady  Harrowby  that  she  makes 
light  of  her  own  share  in  this  work.  She  ascribes  all 
the  glory  to  the  hosts  and  hostesses  who  received 
Dominion  officers  into  their  country  houses  and  enter- 
tained them  for  days  and  weeks.  She  says  that  she  was 
merely  the  secretary  of  this  tremendous  work,  too 
absorbed  in  organisation,  too  busy  finding  hostesses  all 
over  the  country,  to  become  in  any  real  sense  a  friend 
of  so  many  men.  But  there  are  some  people  who  make 
a  deep  impression  on  our  minds  merely  by  the  moral 
atmosphere  which  surround  them,  merely  by  the  sense 
of  goodness  and  sweetness  which  emanates  from  their 
presence;  and  Lady  Harrowby,  for  all  her  strenuous 
work  of  organisation,  being  one  of  those  well-poised 
spirits  whom  no  crisis  can  overset,  no  emergency  can 
fuss,  had  only  to  appear  in  her  drawing-room,  only  to 
pass  through  an  apartment  filled  with  soldiers  from 
France,  only  to  smile  upon  her  guests,  to  touch  their  lives 
with  a  grace  which  they  welcomed.  The  letters  of 
officers  from  all  parts  of  the  Empire  speak  again  and 
again  of  this  gratitude  for  her  personal  kindness,  and 
one  perceives  all  through  these  letters  a  feeling  of  pride 
and  gladness  that  Lord  and  Lady  Harrowby  treated 
their  writers  as  rational  and  moral  beings,  not  as  mere 
children  to  be  amused,  and  deemed  them  worthy  of  a 
friendship  which  never  descended  to  the  easy  levels 
below  intellectual  and  spiritual  refinement. 

Mr.    Charles   Hill,    a   devoted   and    self-sacrificing 


ioo  THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

worker,  who  paid  thousands  of  visits  to  hospitals, 
convalescent  homes,  and  hostels,  seeking  for  Dominion 
soldiers,  and  who  came  into  contact  with  many  of  the 
ladies  in  Lady  Harrowby's  organisation,  told  me  a  story 
which  illustrates  the  difficulties  encountered  by  these 
ladies  in  entertaining  their  guests. 

He  said  to  me:  "I  was  once  visiting  the  Third  Lon- 
don Hospital  at  Wandsworth,  speaking  of  a  visit  that  I 
was  organising  to  Apsley  House.  A  young  officer  said 
to  me,  'I'd  like  to  go  there  awfully,  for  my  great-grand- 
father was  an  ensign  at  Waterloo!'  Unfortunately, 
when  the  day  came,  he  was  too  ill  for  the  outing. 

"I  mentioned  the  matter  to  Lady  Hilda  Murray,  who 
spends  her  whole  day  in  doing  kindnesses,  and  is  never 
too  busy  to  do  an  extra  one — I  don't  know  how  she 
manages  it.  The  idea  of  this  descendant  of  a  Waterloo 
ensign  touched  her.  She  told  me  later  that  she  had 
arranged  for  him  to  visit  Apsley  House,  and  that  Lady 
Eileen  Orde  would  be  there  to  show  him  over  alone.  I 
could  not  go  on  that  day,  for  I  was  taking  a  party  down 
to  Penshurst,  but  I  showed  the  boy  where  the  house 
stood,  told  him  how  lucky  he  was,  and  explained  that 
he  had  only  to  ring  the  bell  of  Apsley  House  to  see  alMts 
contents,  including  the  wonderful  museum. 

"On  my  return  in  the  evening  I  encountered  this 
young  officer.  I  asked  him  how  he  had  enjoyed  his  visit. 
He  replied  that  he  hadn't  gone.  He  made  a  blushing 
excuse,  something  about  not  having  noticed  how  time 


THE  OTHER  SIDE  101 

was  going  till  the  clock  struck  twelve.  I  asked  him  if 
he  had  telephoned  to  Lady  Eileen.  No.  Had  he  tele- 
graphed ?  No.  Ought  he  to  have  done  so  ?  he  asked. 
The  truth  is,  the  poor  boy,  dying  to  go,  was  too  nervous 
to  face  a  great  house  alone.  Many  of  them,  asked  to  a 
London  house,  got  no  further  than  the  door.  We  had 
to  take  them  and  introduce  them  to  their  hostesses. 
Once  the  ice  was  broken,  they  were  perfectly  at  their 
ease,  and  went  again  and  again.  But  the  shyness  of 
these  great  strong  lads  was  something  to  wonder  at.  A 
duchess  seemed  to  them  ever  so  much  more  alarming 
than  a  battery  of  German  guns.  Their  modesty  was 
really  charming." 

It  was  the  naturalness,  rather  than  the  tact,  of  our 
best  English  ladies  which  won  the  confidence  of  these 
young  giants.  They  did  not  want  rackety  women. 
They  were  not  seeking  the  Bohemianism  of  the  ' '  smart 
set."  They  wanted  home  life  at  its  zenith,  home  life  as 
centuries  of  noble  traditions  have  made  it,  and  once 
past  its  imposing  portals,  once  introduced  into  the 
natural  sweetness  of  that  interior,  they  were  at  their 
ease.  None  of  them  ever  lost  his  reverence  for  our  best 
women,  but  all  were  surprised  to  find  how  friendly  and 
gracious  a  thing  is  human  excellence. 

Of  one  woman,  Mrs.  Graham  Murray,  who  gave 
herself  up  to  this  work  with  an  extreme  of  self-sacrifice,  I 
should  like  to  make  a  particular  mention.  Mrs.  Gra- 
ham Murray  presided  over  the  destinies  of  Peel  House, 


102  THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

which  was  used  as  a  club  for  private  soldiers  from  our 
Dominions.  She  lived  there.  It  contained  600  beds. 
Occasionally  it  was  a  little  noisy.  She  maintained 
an  absolute  hold,  however,  over  the  affections  of  her 
lodgers.  She  organised  for  these  men  visits  to  cathe- 
drals under  the  care  of  architects,  arranged  river  picnics 
for  them,  got  them  tickets  for  theatres,  sent  them  sight- 
seeing all  over  London.  Worked  to  death,  she  would, 
nevertheless,  go  off  at  the  call  of  the  telephone  to  play 
the  piano  for  officers  from  the  Dominions  who  wanted  to 
dance  in  one  of  the  big  London  houses.  Very  often,  in 
the  small  hours  of  the  morning,  she  would  find  no  taxi- 
cab  to  take  her  back  to  Peel  House,  and  would  have  to 
drag  herself  there  all  the  way  on  foot. 

Once,  tired  out  and  fit  for  nothing,  she  saw  an  intoxi- 
cated Colonial  soldier  in  Regent  Street,  arguing  with  a 
policeman,  and  in  peril  of  the  sharks  of  the  street.  She 
went  to  him,  got  him  away,  and  persuaded  him  to  let 
her  lead  him  to  Peel  House.  At  the  end  of  the  dreary 
walk  the  maudlin  soldier  thanked  her  for  seeing  him 
home,  and  offered  her  sixpence.  The  scandalised 
doorkeeper  intervened.  ' '  Do  you  know  who  that  lady 
is?"  "No."  "It's  the  Honourable  Mrs.  Graham 
Murray!"  The  soldier  plunged  his  hand  into  his 
pocket.  "Well,  give  her  a  pound!"  he  said,  and 
dragged  out  a  grubby  note. 

Mrs.  Graham  Murray  worked  like  a  slave  for  this 
country's  good  name  during  the  War,  and  her  quite 


THE  OTHER  SIDE  103 

splendid  and  continuous  service  made  less  noise  in  the 
world  than  one  of  the  charity  bazaars  at  Albert  Hall, 
where  Fashion  played  at  being  unselfish. 

If  I  had  the  space,  I  should  like  to  write  about  the 
work  for  Overseas  War  Guests,  notably  the  club  at 
Norfolk  House,  most  generously  given  by  the  Duchess 
of  Norfolk,  for  ladies  from  our  Dominions.  This  club 
numbered  3,300  guests;  there  was  no  subscription,  con- 
certs and  lectures  were  given  free,  meals  were  served  at 
cost  price.  The  members,  gathered  from  every  part  of 
the  Empire,  greatly  valued  the  historic  character  of  their 
splendid  premises,  and  invited  their  men-folk  to  vari- 
ous entertainments  in  those  beautiful  rooms.  But  this 
work,  linked  up  with  hospitality  to  Dominion  officers, 
and  homes  for  women  workers  from  the  Dominions, 
deserves  a  volume  to  itself.  It  was  one  of  the  really 
great  works  done  for  the  Empire — great  because  it  had 
the  touch  of  domesticity ;  it  brought  the  women  of  the 
Empire  together  as  nothing  else  could  have  done. 

Among  other  women  of  my  acquaintance  who  did  not 
play  at  war  work,  but  who  threw  themselves  into  this 
work  with  a  sincere  devotion  and  who  are  still  doing 
work  of  national  importance,  are  Miss  Meriel  Talbot, 
Mrs.  Alfred  Lyttelton,  and  Lady  Sybil  Grey,  figures 
almost  unknown  in  plutocratic  circles,  but  English- 
women of  the  first  class,  all  of  them  with  an  intimate 
knowledge  of  the  British  Empire. 

It  is  instructive  to  observe  that  the  spirit  of  war 


104  THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

work  still  continues  to  animate  the  activities  of  good 
women.  Lady  Hilda  Murray,  one  of  the  most  charm- 
ing people  in  London,  is  as  energetic  as  ever  in  her  work 
of  imperial  consolidation ;  and  Lady  Frances  Ryder  has 
an  organisation  for  showing  personal  hospitality,  both 
in  London  and  the  country,  to  the  great  number  of 
Dominion  students  now  in  England.  Lady  Limerick 
has  set  up  an  Ex-Service  Men's  Club  in  Dartford,  in 
Kent,  which  might  well  serve  as  a  model  to  every  city 
and  town  throughout  the  country. 

Lady  Limerick's  wonderful  work  during  the  War 
deserves  something  more  than  a  passing  reference.  She 
is  one  of  those  impulsive  and  emotional  women,  who  at 
first  slightly  disturb  the  habitual  placidity  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxon,  but  after  a  little  while  her  absolute  self-abne- 
gation, her  utter  devotion  to  other  people,  and  her 
tumultuous  enthusiasm  for  all  that  is  kindly  and  warm 
and  generous,  rather  sweeps  one  away,  and  makes  one 
wonder  whether  our  political  problems  would  not  sur- 
render to  solution  more  quickly  and  easily  if  we 
approached  them  in  this  liberal  spirit  of  loving-kindness. 
Perhaps  we  are  too  cold,  too  formal,  too  afraid  of  trust- 
ing our  intellects,  of  which  we  are  not  very  sure,  in  a 
strong  tide  of  genuine  emotion. 

At  the  outset  of  War,  Lady  Limerick  had  a  personal 
encounter  with  a  soldier  at  Victoria  Station  which  led 
her  to  think  of  giving  all  her  time  to  these  men.  Miss 
Hildyard,  soon  after  this  event,  began  a  work  of  hospit- 


THE  OTHER  SIDE  105 

ality  at  this  station;  before  Lady  Limerick  could  take 
any  part  in  it,  Mrs.  Matthews  had  set  a  great  machinery 
in  motion  which  never  ceased  to  run  till  the  end  of  the 
War.  Accordingly,  Lady  Limerick  went  off  to  London 
Bridge  with  her  friend  Mrs.  Butler,  and  in  this  windiest 
of  London  stations,  with  its  high  levels  and  low  levels, 
its  endless  stairs  and  its  winding  passages,  set  up  a 
free  buffet  for  soldiers,  which  became  one  of  the  friendli- 
est things  on  the  home  front.  At  the  end  of  the  War 
she  had  ministered  to  seven  and  a  half  million  soldiers. 

This  gigantic  undertaking,  so  easily  forgotten,  so 
difficult  to  maintain,  was  carried  on  from  beginning 
to  end  with  only  one  paid  worker,  a  charwoman. 
Among  those  who  gave  their  services,  and  worked  like 
galley  slaves  by  day  and  by  night,  one  relief  missing 
luncheon,  the  other  dinner,  were  many  of  the  first 
women  in  the  land.  I  can  find  room  to  name  only  a 
few  of  these  devoted  ladies,  who  were  on  their  feet  for 
long  hours,  and  who  had  no  fire  to  warm  them  in  winter, 
and  whose  snatched  meals  consisted  chiefly  of  tea  and 
sandwiches.  Lady  Limerick  would  place  first  on  her 
list  Queen  Alexandra,  because  the  occasional  presence 
of  this  gracious  lady  not  only  put  heart  into  her  staff, 
but  gave  such  extraordinary  pleasure  to  the  soldiers 
coming  and  going  from  the  front.  Their  cheers  for 
Queen  Alexandra,  she  tells  me,  ring  in  her  ears  to  this 
day. 

Among  the  other  ladies,  some  of  whom  never  missed  a 


106  THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

single  day  all  those  years,  were  Lady  Evelyn  Farquhar 
(who  greatly  distinguished  herself  during  a  bad 
air  raid),  Miss  Sonia  Keppel  (a  most  devoted  worker), 
Lady  Betty  Butler,  Lady  Hugh  Grosvenor,  Lady 
Lister-Kaye,  Lady  Poultney,  Lady  Rossmore,  Lady 
Evelyn  Ward,  Lady  Milbanke,  Lady  Bingham,  the 
Hon.  Mrs.  John  Ward,  and  many  other  ladies  too 
numerous  to  mention.  Their  great  work  never  failed. 
The  free  buffet  at  London  Bridge  became  a  real  memory 
in  the  life  of  seven  and  a  half  million  soldiers ;  the  spirit 
of  it  was  so  warm  and  so  friendly. 

Lady  Limerick  once  had  a  slight  altercation  with 
a  staff  colonel,  who  seemed  to  resent  her  motherly  man- 
ner with  soldiers,  not  knowing  who  she  was  or  anything 
of  her  work.  "Ah!"  she  cried,  with  mock  derision, 
"you're  too  English  to  feel  like  a  human  being."  "I'm 
from  Tipperary,"  said  the  colonel.  "Are  you, 
though ? "  "I  am. "  "  Well,  then,  'tis  a  long  time  since 
you  were  there."  At  the  end  of  all  her  disputes  she  has 
the  habit  of  saying, ' '  Me  name's  Limerick,  and  I'm  from 
Ireland,  though  you  mightn't  think  it  from  me  accent." 
A  great-hearted,  motherly  woman,  on  whom  sorrow 
has  rained  the  most  terrible  sufferings,  but  whose 
spirit  is  unbowed,  and  whose  heart  is  full  of  the  music 
of  humanity. 

I  will  conclude  this  chapter  with  a  reference  to  work 
of  quite  a  different  kind,  a  branch  of  which  was  carried 
on  during  the  War  by  Mrs.  John  Thynne,  and  is  still 


THE  OTHER  SIDE  107 

being  carried  on — the  work  of  rescuing  fallen  women. 
I  remember  going  to  Mrs.  Thynne's  house  during  the 
War,  and  meeting  there  her  friend,  Princess  Christian, 
and  several  other  people  gathered  together  to  discuss 
this  most  difficult  question.  Not  all  the  terrible 
distractions  of  the  struggle  in  France  could  deflect  Mrs. 
Thynne  from  this  narrow  path  of  duty  which  she  has 
faithfully  and  most  courageously  followed  for  fifty 
years.  The  War  rendered  her  work  more  difficult, 
more  heart-breaking,  but  Mrs.  Thynne  and  her  friends 
were  determined  to  meet  the  increased  difficulties  by 
extra  efforts  and  extra  courage. 

It  is  interesting  to  know  that  Mrs.  Thynne  was 
drawn  into  this  work  as  a  young  bride  in  1873  by 
Lady  Augusta  Stanley,  of  whom  Mr.  Birrell  gives 
us  a  momentary  glance  in  his  charming  monograph 
on  Frederick  Locker-Lampson.  Lady  Augusta  was 
characteristically  English  in  the  central  seriousness 
of  character  from  which  radiated  all  her  social  bright- 
ness. The  argument  she  used  to  the  beautiful  Mrs. 
Thynne  was  a  simple  one ;  it  is  the  duty  of  happy  mar- 
ried women  to  help  girls  who  are  forlorn  and  friendless 
— happiness  is  a  responsibility.  In  this  way  it  came 
about  that  one  of  the  sweetest  young  brides  in  London 
was  to  be  seen  in  the  seventies  moving  through  the 
shadows  of  London  midnight  streets,  speaking  to  fallen 
women,  and  taking  those  who  would  come  with  her  to 
houses  of  rescue.    And  from  that  day  to  this,  with 


108  THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

scores  of  women  definitely  saved  from  destruction  by 
her  efforts,  Mrs.  Thynne  has  never  abandoned  her  la- 
bour of  love. 

The  Gladstones  had  long  been  at  this  work ;  perhaps 
it  was  through  them  that  Lady  Edward  Cavendish  and 
Lady  Sarah  Spencer,  unknown  to  their  parents,  would 
go  to  their  rooms  in  the  midst  of  a  great  reception  at 
Devonshire  House,  or  after  a  dinner-party,  and  change 
their  fine  frocks  for  dark  garments,  and  then  steal  out 
into  the  streets  to  attempt  the  rescue  of  fallen  women. 
Mrs.  Thynne  knows  this  to  be  true,  and  a  great  friend 
of  mine  who  scouted  it  at  first  has  since  confirmed  it. 
Mrs.  Thynne  tells  me  that  many  great  ladies  gave 
themselves  to  this  bitter  work,  but  in  most  cases  did 
it  in  secret. 

She  tells  me  of  the  help  she  herself  received  from 
Adeline,  Duchess  of  Bedford,  who  visited  prisons, 
and  sought  by  preventive  work  of  many  kinds  to 
stem  the  tide  of  harlotry.  I  knew  the  duchess,  and 
know  how  good  she  was,  and  I  am  quite  certain  she 
laboured  heart  and  soul  in  this  direction;  but,  unhappily 
she  lacked  the  beautiful  naturalness  of  her  sister,  Lady 
Henry  Somerset,  and  had  none  of  that  gentle  sweetness 
which  makes  Mrs.  Thynne  irresistible.  Her  influence 
in  society  would  have  been  far  greater  if  she  had  pos- 
sessed something  of  the  richness  of  Lady  Limerick's 
emotionalism.  She  was  a  good  woman,  but  her  nature, 
not  her  heart,  was  cold.    She  could  never  give  herself; 


THE  OTHER  SIDE  109 

her  life,  yes,  but  not  herself.  Perhaps  it  was  an  inner 
timidity  that  held  her  captive. 

Among  the  other  people  whose  preventive  work 
during  the  War  saved  thousands  of  young  girls  from 
ruin,  Mrs.  Thynne  mentions  the  Dowager  Lady  Hilling- 
don,  Francis  Lady  de  l'lsle  and  Dudley,  Lady  St.  Cyres, 
and  the  Duchess  of  Atholl,  all  of  whom  saw  to  it  that  no 
red  tape  encumbered  their  ministrations.  To  these 
ladies,  of  whose  activities  the  public  knows  nothing,  we 
owe  it  that  many  thousands  of  girl  war-workers  were 
brought  into  close  personal  contact  with  influences  of  a 
pure  and  refining  nature.  No  statistics  of  such  work 
can  tell  its  story.  The  nation  may  be  certain,  however, 
that  because  of  these  good  women,  purity  held  its  own  at 
a  time  when  no  immodesty  seemed  greatly  to  matter. 

How  little  we  know  of  the  goodness  in  the  world! 
The  other  day,  lunching  at  St.  James's  Palace,  I  met 
an  elderly  gentleman  whom  I  had  often  seen  before, 
but  to  whom  I  had  never  been  introduced.  I  knew  him 
as  one  who  goes  about  a  good  deal,  and  is  warmly  liked 
by  his  Eton  contemporaries,  in  whose  houses  he  is  a  con- 
stant guest.  This  elderly  gentleman,  may  I  be  allowed 
to  say,  is  remarkable  for  no  gifts;  he  is  not  a  brilliant 
conversationalist,  has  no  store  of  anecdotes  and  quota- 
tions at  his  command,  is  not  in  any  sense  of  the  word  a 
1 '  performer. ' '  He  is  remarkable  only  for  a  singular  benig- 
nity of  manner  and  a  charming  kindliness  of  expression. 

A  friend  of  mine  to  whom  I  happened  to  mention  this 


no  THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

encounter  asked  me  if  I  knew  about  Mr. — 's  life,  and 
then  told  me  the  following  story : 

"He  lives  alone  in  a  little  street  which  has  many 
shabby  corners,  looked  after  by  an  old  butler  and  an  old 
cook,  who  have  been  with  him  for  forty  years.  He 
used  to  give  the  most  charming  little  dinners,  but 
taxation  and  the  high  price  of  things  have  put  an  end  to 
this  hospitality.  But  the  War  did  not  put  an  end  to  his 
other  kindnesses.  He  has  a  district  in  Whitechapel 
which  he  visits  regularly,  calling  on  old  people  in  their 
little  houses,  just  as  he  calls  on  ladies  in  this  part  of  the 
town.  He  does  not  preach,  distribute  tracts,  or  argue 
as  a  political  propagandist ;  he  is  a  social  visitor  to  these 
old  bodies,  calling  to  inquire  after  their  health  and 
patiently  listening  to  their  gossip.  Once  every  week  he 
takes  a  blind  man  for  a  walk.  There  is  a  hospital  in 
London  to  which  he  goes  to  talk  to  the  patients  who 
have  no  visitors.  He  has  been  a  constant  friend  to  St. 
Dunstan's.  Very  few  people  in  London  know  anything 
about  this  part  of  his  life.  They  simply  regard  him  as  a 
charming  old  bachelor,  who  has  looked  on  at  the  pageant 
of  social  life  from  a  snug  corner.  But  he  is  really  one 
of  the  kindest  and  most  unselfish  of  men — a  lovable 
man,  full  of  gentleness  and  sympathy." 

What  a  portrait  of  an  English  gentleman ! 

As  I  think  of  all  the  good  work  done  during  and 
since  the  War — think  of  Sir  Arthur  Pearson's  work 


THE  OTHER  SIDE  in 

for  blind  soldiers  and  blind  children — I  feel  that  this 
chapter  will  never  come  to  an  end.  Yet  I  must  turn  to 
my  main  subject,  which  is  constructive  criticism, 
though  I  have  mentioned  but  a  tithe  of  all  that  devoted 
service. 

In  concluding  this  chapter,  however,  I  would  like  to 
pay  tribute  to  the  zeal  and  self-sacrificing  labours  of 
those  ladies  who  never  wearied  in  bringing  consolation 
and  assistance  to  the  widows  of  fallen  officers,  young 
women  often  left  suddenly  without  a  friend  in  the  world, 
or  a  shilling  in  their  purses.  Among  these  ministering 
women  were  Lady  Lansdowne,  Lady  Hope  (daughter  of 
the  beautiful  and  witty  Lady  Constance  Leslie)  and 
Mrs.  Brinton,  better  known  as  Mrs.  William  James. 
Mrs.  Brinton  truly  worked  like  a  Trojan,  and  I  know 
how  often  she  went  long  journeys  at  great  trouble  and 
expense  to  comfort  some  poor  young  mother  left  sud- 
denly destitute.  But  she  likes  to  hide  her  personal 
work,  and  to  ascribe  the  increasing  success  of  the 
Officers'  Families  Association  to  the  businesslike  chair- 
manship of  Princess  Christian,  and  to  the  devotion  of 
ladies  like  Mrs.  Austen  Chamberlain  who  serve  on 
the  committee.  Homes  are  provided  for  these  widows 
and  their  babies  at  a  merely  nominal  rent,  and  the 
Association  does  all  that  is  possible  in  the  matter  of 
educating  the  children.  Perhaps  something  of  the 
tragedy  of  this  work  may  be  realised  when  it  is  known 
that  many  widows  of  young  officers  found  themselves 


112  THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

without  a  penny  to  buy  mourning,  their  pay  stopped, 
their  pensions  not  granted.  This  great  work,  carried 
on  throughout  the  War,  is  still  being  carried  on  with 
devotion  and  personal  sacrifice. 

But  now  I  really  must  turn  this  page — so  delightful 
to  write,  but  so  inadequate  to  the  labours  it  attempts 
to  describe  if  only  in  the  finest  of  thin  outlines.  The 
reader  in  foreign  countries,  particularly,  I  hope,  in  the 
United  States,  will  agree  with  me,  however,  in  spite  of 
this  sketchiness,  that  there  is  a  side  to  English  society 
which  is  neither  base  nor  contemptible. 

In  my  conclusion  to  this  book  I  am  going  to  argue 
that  goodness  is  not  enough,  and  to  suggest  that  the 
Aristotelian  idea  of  a  Higher  Excellence  than  morality 
is  essential  to  the  development  of  a  true  and  powerful 
aristocracy.  But  for  the  present  I  seek  only  to  undo,  as 
far  as  it  is  possible  so  late  in  the  day,  some  of  the  ill  con- 
sequences of  books  like  Mrs.  Asquith's  and  Colonel 
Repington's,  not  pretending  for  a  moment  that  English 
aristocracy  meets  the  full  needs  of  the  time,  but  con- 
tending that  it  is  not  wholly  false  to  its  traditions  and 
not  wholly  unmindful  of  its  duties. 


W       0) 

Z        CO 


CHAPTER  VIII 

MANNERS 

Consider  these  people,  then,  their  way  of  life,  their  habits, 
their  manners,  the  very  tones  of  their  voices;  look  at  them  atten- 
tively; observe  the  literature  they  read,  the  things  which  give 
them  pleasure,  the  words  which  come  forth  out  of  their  mouths, 
the  thoughts  which  make  the  furniture  of  their  minds;  would 
any  amount  of  wealth  be  worth  having  with  the  condition  that 
one  was  to  become  just  like  these  people  by  having  it? — Mat- 
thew Arnold. 

Let  us  now  return  to  our  study  of  Fashion,  seeking  to 
discover  in  what  respects  it  fails  the  English  people,  and 
does  harm  to  the  orderly  evolution  of  English 
civilisation. 

Lady  Frances  Balfour  declared  of  Mrs.  Asquith's 
book  that  "licence  in  manners  must  not  be  confused 
with  a  licence  in  morals";  and  I  suppose  the  vast 
majority  of  people  will  agree  with  her  in  thus  separating 
morals  from  manners,  and  thus  degrading  manners 
below  the  level  of  morals. 

Nevertheless,  this  condition  of  mind  is  fatal  to  human 
progress. 

To  suggest  that  morals  are  more  important  than 
*  113 


114  THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

manners  is  equivalent  to  asserting  that  the  Greek 
alphabet  is  more  important  than  the  Dialogues  of  Plato. 
Morals  are  the  study  of  the  kindergarten.  They  pro- 
ceed out  of  lessons  on  the  use  of  tooth-brush  and  flannel. 
When  we  teach  men  not  to  steal,  and  not  to  murder,  we 
are  instructing  them  only  in  the  elements  of  conduct. 
The  Sermon  on  the  Mount  was  not  a  plagiarism  of  Sinai 
nor  a  paraphrase  of  the  Tables  of  Stone;  it  was  in  an 
altogether  different  region — it  was  a  discourse  on 
manners. 

It  is  when  we  have  left  the  kindergarten  of  the 
moral  life,  and  have  entered  the  university  of  the 
spiritual  life,  that  we  proceed  from  the  Ten  Command- 
ments to  gentleness,  mercy,  humility,  sweetness,  self- 
abnegation,  love;  and  not  until  we  have  graduated  in 
manners  may  we  call  ourselves  without  absurdity  citi- 
zens of  civilisation. 

Many  people  have  been  shocked  by  Nietzsche's 
statement  that  if  the  kingdom  of  righteousness  and 
peace  was  established  on  earth,  it  would  mean  ' '  a  king- 
dom of  the  profoundest  mediocrity  and  Chinaism." 
But  a  greater  than  Nietzsche  said  the  same  thing. 
The  righteousness  of  the  Pharisee  was  condemned  by 
Jesus,  perfect  as  that  righteousness  was,  because  it 
could  lead  only  to  stagnation — that  is  to  say,  to  medi- 
ocrity and  Chinaism. 

To  announce  "Here  is  the  law,  and  obedience  to  the 
law  satisfies  the  universe,"  is  to  close  the  one  door  on 


MANNERS  115 

earth  which  life  has  been  able  to  keep  open  for  the 
eternal  struggle  after  infinite  improvement.  It  is  neces- 
sary, if  that  one  door  on  earth  is  to  be  kept  open,  to  say, 
"Be  ye  perfect,  even  as  your  Father  in  heaven  is  per- 
fect." Man  can  no  more  stop  at  morality  than  the 
elephant  can  go  forward  to  mathematics  or  music. 
It  is  essential  to  the  whole  scheme  of  things  that  man 
should  have  an  open  road  for  his  progress.  When  he 
has  learned  not  to  rob  his  neighbour,  and  not  to  kill 
those  who  possess  things  which  he  covets,  he  has 
passed  from  the  savage,  but  has  by  no  means  reached 
manhood.  The  police-court  is  not  a  rehearsal  of  the 
Judgment  Day,  nor  is  the  gate  of  heaven  guarded  by 
an  official  from  Scotland  Yard. 

All  indistinctly  apprehend  a  bliss 
On  which  the  soul  may  rest ;  the  hearts  of  all 
Yearn  after  it,  and  to  that  wished  bourne 
All  therefore  strive. 

Because  of  the  grave  importance  of  this  matter, 
I  hope  I  may  be  forgiven  if  I  express  the  hope  that 
the  Prince  of  Wales,  who  can  do  so  much  for  the  nation 
if  he  will  take  the  next  step  on  the  road  to  spiritual 
development,  will  not  mistake  popularity  for  influence. 
It  is  of  high  importance  to  the  Empire  that  his  staff 
should  consist  of  men  whose  intelligence  is  equal  to 
their  social  position.  To  be  charming  is  a  great  power, 
and  a  tremendous  responsibility.    With  his  nature, 


Ii6  THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

which  is  so  attractive,  the  Prince  may  do  a  great  deal 
to  save  society  from  a  grave  disaster.  He  will  best 
serve  the  nation  in  this  way  if  he  makes  friends  only 
among  the  best  men  and  women  of  the  day,  its  scholars 
and  its  workers,  those  people  whose  lives  are  devoted 
to  the  highest  interests  of  the  human  race,  and  whose 
culture  entitles  them  to  be  the  leaders  of  English 
civilisation.  It  is  possible,  perhaps,  for  a  Prince  of 
Wales  to  be  too  familiar  a  figure,  too  often  the  centre 
of  a  vast  crowd ;  certainly  it  is  of  high  importance  that 
he  should  have  the  most  ample  leisure  for  conversation 
with  the  first  minds  of  the  world.  From  him,  more 
than  from  anybody  of  our  time,  is  the  next  generation 
likely  to  draw  its  idea  of  manners. 

The  idea  that  manners  are  merely  the  accomplish- 
ment of  a  class,  or  an  indication  of  one's  place  in  the 
social  hierarchy,  or  something  that  has  to  do  with 
etiquette  and  ceremonial — this  perversion  of  truth  has 
not,  perhaps,  as  numerous  a  constituency  as  its  fellow 
falsehood,  that  money  is  a  key  to  happiness.  But 
that  a  woman  so  good  and  so  clever  as  Lady  Frances 
Balfour  should  say  a  word  tending  to  propagate  this 
destructive  falsehood  reveals  to  all  who  care  for  Eng- 
land, and  who  believe  that  the  tone  of  English  life  is 
infinitely  more  important  than  parliamentary  enact- 
ments, in  how  perilous  a  position  we  have  come  to 
stand. 

We  are  talking  nonsense  on  the  edge  of  an  abyss. 


MANNERS  117 

If  you  would  see  the  truth  of  this  matter,  study 
the  Founder  of  Christianity,  whose  manners  permeated 
if  they  did  not  create  English  character. 

Morals,  with  Christ,  had  to  do  with  man  as  he  was; 
Manners  with  what  He  was  becoming.  His  blessing 
was  on  the  springs  of  behaviour — on  meekness  and 
gentleness,  on  humility  and  lowliness,  on  hunger  and 
thirst  after  perfection,  on  mercy,  purity  of  heart, 
and  long  suffering. 

When  He  stooped  and  wrote  in  the  dust,  He  was 
overcome,  not  by  the  sin  of  the  captured  woman,  but 
by  the  morality  of  her  accusers,  a  morality  so  earnest 
and  triumphant  that  it  took  no  count  of  the  sinner's 
feelings,  was  unconscious  even  of  wounding  her  sense  of 
delicacy. 

His  manner  to  those  who  were  guilty  of  a  licence 
in  morals  was  invariably  gentle  and  tender;  on  the  other 
hand,  the  mere  sight  of  a  Pharisee  moved  Him  to  an 
indignation  which  sometimes  disturbed  the  central 
serenity  of  His  nature. 

His  teaching  took  the  Ten  Commandments  for 
granted.  His  text  began  with  manners  and  proceeded 
to  perfection. 

St.  Paul  summed  up  this  teaching  in  a  hymn  of 
such  exquisite  beauty  that  no  words  of  Shakespeare 
so  haunt  the  human  mind:  "Though  I  speak  with 
the  tongues  of  men  and  of  angels,  and  have  not  charity, 
I  am  become  as  sounding  brass,  or  a  tinkling  cymbal." 


u8  THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

What  has  the  universe  got  to  do  with  sounding  brass 
and  a  tinkling  cymbal?  He  might  perform  every 
requirement  of  the  law,  even  to  the  extreme  of  giving  all 
his  goods  to  the  poor  and  his  body  to  be  burned,  and  yet 
be  worth  nothing. 

If  ever  any  instruction  was  plain  and  simple,  it  is  this 
instruction  of  Christ  that  spiritual  evolution,  spiritual 
growth,  turns  on  an  attitude,  a  behaviour,  a  manner,  a 
way  of  handling  life,  of  regarding  the  universe. 

This  was  His  revelation.  Morality  can  destroy  a  soul 
quite  as  easily  as  immorality.  Indeed,  the  destruction 
of  morality  is  greater,  for  it  hardens  the  heart ;  that  is  to 
say,  hardens  the  point  of  contact  with  God.  But  with 
love  in  the  heart,  the  soul  even  of  a  great  sinner  is  not 
lost  to  the  purposes  of  creation.  It  is  certain  that  the 
angels  would  prefer  to  see  the  earth  inhabited  by  a 
single  human  being  after  the  pattern  of  David  or 
Augustine  than  crowded  in  every  continent  with 
Pharisees. 

Mrs.  Asquith  drew  up  a  summary  of  her  history 
and  her  aspirations.  The  last  of  those  aspirations 
was  for  "a  crowded  memorial  service."  Will  Lady 
Frances  Balfour  defend  the  vulgarity  of  soul  which 
inspired  that  aspiration?  Is  there  not  in  this  passion 
for  a  last  crowd,  as  it  were  a  last  audience,  something 
that  shocks  us  in  the  depths  of  our  nature  more  than 
the  sins  of  the  weak  and  the  uneducated? 

Much  is  to  be  learned  from  that  flippancy.     Does 


MANNERS  119 

it  not  witness  to  an  immense  desolation  of  the  woman's 
heart?  She  does  not  dare  to  be  alone  with  herself  even 
in  the  grave.  She  would  have  the  fashionable  world, 
and  the  photographers  of  the  illustrated  papers,  as  near 
her  coffin  as  burial  will  permit.  As  the  tree  falls,  so 
would  it  lie.  As  she  has  sown,  so  would  she  reap. 
What  vulgarity ! 

I  think  the  decline  in  manners  is  to  be  atrributed 
to  a  single  cause — the  loss  in  man  of  a  sense  of  dignity. 
He  has  dislocated  his  spirit.  It  is  no  longer  articulated 
with  the  universe.  He  thinks  of  himself  as  an  animal, 
and  of  the  earth  as  something  unrelated  to  the  rest  of 
creation.  Myopia  has  seen  infinity  and  formulated  a 
thesis  of  existence.  We  are  outside  the  invisible;  we 
have  no  connection  with  eternity ;  our  terrestrial  past  is 
minus  a  meaning ;  the  future  of  humanity  is  without  a 
goal. 

There  was  once  on  this  earth  a  period  known  as  the 
Drift  Age.  At  the  present  moment  we  are  witnessing  a 
Drift  Age  in  morals.  Why  should  man  be  particular 
about  learning  his  alphabet  if  the  end  is  only  to  spell 
with  those  difficult  letters  the  word  Nothing? 

Many  people  have  a  fear  of  Bolshevism.  A  more 
likely  danger  to  overtake  the  human  race  is  destruction 
by  Pessimism.  Moral  languor  means  something  more 
than  a  reversion  to  animalism;  it  means  a  descent  into 
devilry. 

In  the  sphere  of  manners  I  am  convinced  that  the 


120  THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

example  of  Fashion  makes  powerfully  for  this  danger  of 
Pessimism. 

Look  at  Fashion  as  it  exhibits  itself  to  mankind 
after  a  calamity  unparalleled  in  history,  and  ask  if 
its  example  in  manners  lends  any  encouragement 
to  the  passion  of  the  man  of  science  for  knowledge, 
to  the  desire  of  the  world  for  peace,  to  the  belief  of  the 
spiritual  that  life  is  an  everlasting  evolution  of  beauty, 
power,  and  knowledge  ? 

What  end  does  Fashion  offer  to  mankind  for  their 
labours?  Its  voice  is  lifted  up  to  say,  "Work  hard 
if  you  would  have  a  good  time,"  and  its  good  time 
is  a  condition  of  luxury.  At  the  door  of  Fashion 
the  sentinel  does  not  challenge  those  who  approach 
with  the  cry, ' '  Who  goes  there  ? ' '  but ' '  How  much  do  you 
bring  ? "  So  long  as  a  man  has  made  money,  no  matter 
in  what  way,  and  no  matter  how  dull  or  how  stupid 
or  how  flagrantly  vulgar  he  may  be,  Fashion  will  open 
its  door  to  him,  and  he  is  admitted  to  the  Olympus  of 
our  national  life.  There  are  men  on  that  Olympus  at 
the  present  moment,  boasting  of  their  aristocratic 
friends,  whose  minds  are  as  truly  ignorant  of  culture  as 
the  mind  of  a  Patagonian  or  an  Esquimaux. 

In  The  Young  Visiters,  at  which  the  world  has  laughed 
with  a  rare  delight,  but  which  contains  matter  that 
might  almost  be  said  to  be  written  for  our  learning, 
there  is  a  conversation  between  Mr.  Salteena  and  the 
Earl  of  Clincham  in  the  Compartments  of  the  Crystal 


MANNERS  121 

Palace  which   I   think  is  perfectly  characteristic  of 
modern  society. 

Mr.  Salteena  desires  to  enter  fashionable  circles 
and  presents  himself  before  Lord  Clincham,  who  in- 
quires his  name.     We  read : 

Mr.  Salteena  seated  himself  gingerly  on  the  edge  of  a 
crested  chair.  To  tell  you  the  truth  my  Lord  I  am  not 
anyone  of  import  and  I  am  not  a  gentleman  as  they  say, 
he  ended  getting  very  red  and  hot. 

Have  some  whiskey  said  lord  Clincham  and  he  poured 
the  liquid  into  a  glass  at  his  elbow.  Mr.  Salteena  lapped 
it  up  thankfully. 

.  .  .  The  Earl  gave  a  slight  cough  and  gazed  at  Mr. 
Salteena  thourghtfully. 

Have  you  much  money  he  asked  and  are  you  prepared 
to  spend  a  good  deal. 

Oh  yes  quite  gasped  Mr.  Salteena. 

We  smile ;  but  the  pantomime  is  true  to  life.  Is  there 
a  living  soul  who  doubts  for  a  moment  that  aristocracy 
has  sold  the  pass  to  Dives?  Is  there,  on  the  visible 
summit  of  our  national  life,  we  may  fairly  ask,  even  one 
true  lineal  descendant  of  that  aristocracy  in  the  six- 
teenth century  which  led  the  Renaissance?  We  can- 
not pretend  that  we  have  a  working  aristocracy — an 
aristocracy,  I  mean,  whose  example  penetrates  and 
interpenetrates  the  social  organism.  It  would  be 
f  oolish  to  make  that  pretence.  We  possess  in  place  of  an 
aristocracy  of  culture  a  powerful  and  cynical  plutocracy 
which  is  as  wholly  given  to  the  worship  of  Mam- 


122  THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

mon  as  any  nation  of  heathen  times.  It  is  this  pluto- 
cracy which  influences  the  whole  social  organism.  At 
the  head  of  the  nation  are  the  Mammonites.  Fashion 
may  amuse  itself  with  the  mime  and  the  artist,  but 
its  only  heirs  are  the  sons  of  Dives.  No  one,  indeed, 
can  live  in  that  world  who  is  not  rich.  He  may  be 
utterly  ignorant,  without  grace,  without  value  of  any 
kind  for  the  higher  life  of  humanity ;  but  so  long  as  he  is 
not  poor,  he  marches  at  the  head  of  the  English  nation. 

This  condition  of  modern  society  has  a  twofold  effect 
on  the  nation.  On  the  great  bulk  of  the  English  people 
it  has  a  vulgarising  effect — it  makes  them  think  highly 
of  money  and  scornfully  of  culture,  it  makes  them  hot 
for  -self-indulgence  and  cold  towards  self -development, 
it  makes  them  eager  for  parade,  display,  ostentation; 
they  have  no  inward  life,  they  are  "nowhere  greater 
strangers  than  at  home,"  their  eyes  are  in  the  ends  of 
the  earth. 

The  other  effect  is  on  the  wage-earner,  whose  rise 
in  wages  is  at  almost  every  point  defeated  by  the  cost 
of  living;  on  him  the  display  of  the  ostentatious  rich  has 
an  exasperating  effect.  At  first  he  strives,  like  so  many 
of  those  above  him,  to  imitate  Fashion,  but  fails,  be- 
comes reckless,  and  takes  to  preaching  a  gospel  of  plun- 
der and  destruction. 

Now,  obviously,  the  one  valid  justification  for  an 
aristocracy  is  that  it  should  lead  the  nation  in  the  right 
way.     It  is  of  value  to  a  state  only  when  it  uses  its  enor- 


MANNERS  123 

mous  advantages  to  discourage  what  is  vain  or  unprofit- 
able in  the  social  life  of  the  nation,  and  to  encourage 
all  that  makes  for  lasting  joy  and  the  deepest  satisfaction 
of  the  human  spirit. 

Above  everything  else,  it  is  the  duty  of  an  upper 
class  to  set  the  highest  example  in  manners.  We 
should  be  able  to  take  the  morals  of  an  aristocracy 
for  granted.  What  we  chiefly  require  of  it  is  leadership 
in  manners — that  is  to  say,  in  an  attitude  towards  the 
universe,  a  handling  of  life.  If  it  teaches  us  that  luxury 
and  ostentation  are  the  chief  goods  of  life,  and  that 
the  wise  man  is  he  who  possesses  himself  of  the  means 
for  purchasing  those  goods,  then  clearly  the  Bolshevist 
has  as  great  encouragement  for  his  thesis  as  the  sweater 
of  labour,  the  swindler,  the  card-sharper,  and  the 
burglar  have  for  their  methods.  The  whole  struggle  of 
the  nation  must  inevitably  be  towards  the  trough. 

Fashion  is  so  placed  that  it  must  set  either  a  good 
or  a  bad  example  to  the  nation.  It  cannot  move  with- 
out affecting  the  whole  structure  of  society.  Human- 
ity looks  up  to  Fashion,  and  is  either  deceived  by  it  or 
disgusted.  Therefore,  as  I  would  persuade  the  central 
classes  of  the  nation  to  see,  it  is  a  matter  vital  to  the 
well-being  of  the  community  that  Fashion  should  set 
examples  which  strengthen  the  nation  and  inspire  it  to 
noble  living. 

I  would  lay  emphasis  on  the  disastrous  consequences 
of  ostentation.     I  believe  that  nothing  makes  the  work 


124  THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

of  the  revolutionist  easier  than  the  ostentatious  luxury 
of  the  rich.  Its  social  consequence  is  bad  enough,  for  it 
is  vulgarising  the  middle  classes  in  battalions;  but  its 
political  consequence  may  well  be  worse  than  anything 
we  have  yet  known  in  our  history.  Ostentation  of  the 
kind  which  is  now  rampant  in  the  public  circles  of 
Fashion  maddens  the  atheistical  brain  of  the  man  who 
has,  with  a  talent  for  declamation,  a  struggle  to  exist. 

If  there  is  one  great  and  controlling  principle  in  the 
behaviour  of  the  average  good  Englishman  it  is  the 
principle  of  reserve. 

This  virtue  is  not  always  the  higher  virtue  of  mod- 
esty, but  it  makes  for  that  virtue.  The  characteristic 
Englishman  does  not  advertise  either  his  position  or  his 
possessions.  He  calls  it  very  bad  manners  to  dress 
loudly,  to  talk  at  the  top  of  the  voice,  to  make  a  dis- 
play of  jewellery,  to  conduct  a  household  ostentatious- 
ly, to  be  pushful,  noisy,  extravagant,  showy,  and  brazen ; 
these  things  he  regards  as  "bad  form."  They  have  no 
temptations  for  him.    They  are  distasteful. 

But  among  the  rich  on  the  summit  of  our  national 
life  this  principle  of  behaviour,  which  I  reckon  to  be  the 
historic  centre  of  English  character,  has  no  existence. 

These  vulgar  people  have  used  money  to  advertise 
their  wares,  and  now  would  use  the  money  made  by  that 
advertisement  to  advertise  themselves.  The  shop 
window  is  transferred  from  commercial  to  social  life. 
Reserve  in  business  would  be  ruin ;  reserve  in  social  life 


MANNERS  125 

would  be  suicide.  As  they  attracted  the  public  to  buy 
their  goods,  so  they  would  attract  aristocracy  to  a 
knowledge  of  their  arrival  in  Vanity  Fair.  They 
advertise  their  existence  by  hanging  their  women  with 
jewels,  by  building  palatial  houses,  and  by  giving  enter- 
tainments which  in  every  detail  flash  wealth  in  the  eyes 
of  their  parasitic  guests. 

"Me's  here ! "  is  the  announcement  of  Midas,  striding 
into  the  Olympus  of  English  life,  and  Fashion  hurries 
forward  to  offer  a  "crested  chair." 

Ostentation,  this  disease  which  threatens  our  de- 
struction, is  not  a  crime  which  brings  the  policeman  after 
those  who  spread  its  contagion ;  it  is  not  nearly  so  great  a 
thing  in  the  eyes  of  the  moralist  as  the  liquor  question 
or  the  question  of  harlotry ;  it  is  in  truth  a  breach  of 
manners,  a  mere  vanity  against  which  the  Almighty  set 
no  canon  in  the  thunders  of  Sinai,  a  thing  to  be  expected, 
a  matter  for  the  gentle  ridicule  of  Punch,  an  affair  be- 
neath the  notice  of  Parliament  and  Church. 

Nevertheless  it  is  a  bad  example — an  example  not  of 
low  morals,  but  of  bad  manners,  and  an  example  which 
many  will  follow  who  would  resist  an  example  in  bad 
morals ;  so  it  comes  about  that  we  are  moving  in  mass 
on  a  road  so  wholly  opposite  to  the  road  marked  out  for 
our  advance  that  we  cannot  hope,  if  we  persist  in  follow- 
ing it,  to  escape  the  wilderness. 

It  is  curious  how  the  true  nature  of  fine  manners 
can  escape  the  attention  of  even  very  intelligent  people. 


126  THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

I  find  this  passage  concerning  the  eighties  in  that  very- 
interesting  and  ably- written  book  The  Reminiscences  of 
Lady  Randolph  Churchill: 

Etiquette  and  the  amenities  of  social  life  were  thought 
much  more  of  then  than  now.  The  writing  of  ceremon- 
ious notes,  the  leaving  of  cards,  not  to  speak  of  visites  de 
digestion,  which  even  young  men  were  supposed  to  pay, 
took  up  most  afternoons.  There  was  little  or  none  of 
that  extraordinary  restlessness  and  craving  for  something 
new  which  is  a  feature  of  to-day,  necessarily  causing  man- 
ners to  deteriorate,  and  certainly  curtailing  the  amenities 
of  social  life  on  which  past  generations  set  such  store.  A 
nod  replaces  the  ceremonious  bow,  a  familiar  handshake 
the  elaborate  curtsey.  The  carefully  worded,  beauti- 
fully written  invitation  of  thirty  years  ago  is  dropped 
in  favour  of  a  garbled  telephone  message  such  as  "Will 
Mrs.  S.  dine  with  Lady  T.,  and  bring  a  man;  and  if 
she  can't  find  one  she  mustn't  come,  as  it  would  make 
them  thirteen";  or  a  message  to  a  club:  "Will  Mr.  G. 
dine  with  Lady  T.  to-night?  If  so,  will  he  look  in  the 
card-room  and  see  if  any  of  her  lot  are  there,  and  suggest 
somebody."  Life,  however,  seemed  to  be  as  full  then  as 
it  is  now,  although  people  did  not  try  to  press  into  one  day 
the  duties  and  pleasures  of  a  week,  finishing  none  and 
enjoying  none.  The  motor  and  the  telephone  were  un- 
known, and  the  receipt  of  the  shilling  telegram  was  still 
unusual  enough  to  cause  feelings  of  apprehension.  There 
was  none  of  that  easy  tolerance  and  familiarity  which  is 
undoubtedly  fostered  by  the  daily,  not  to  say  hourly, 
touch  and  communication  of  modern  society. 

The  idea  in  the  writer's  mind  seems  to  be  that  man- 
ners are  merely  a  sort  of  social  polish,  a  grace  of  the  body 


MANNERS  127 

as  it  were,  like  a  distinguished  diction  or  a  pleasantness 
in  conversation.  But  manners,  rightly  regarded,  are  the 
style  of  the  soul,  and  they  can  never  be  genuine,  never  be 
anything  more  than  veneer  or  polish,  unless  they  pro- 
ceed as  naturally  as  the  exhalation  of  a  rose  from  the 
inmost  beauty  of  the  spirit,  that  is  to  say,  from  humility, 
tenderness,  loving-kindness,  and  desire  of  excellence. 

The  reader  of  The  Mirrors  of  Downing  Street  may 
remember  that  I  ventured  to  criticise  Mr.  Arthur  Bal- 
four, passing  behind  the  shield  of  his  engaging  and 
attractive  manners  to  the  central  egoism  of  his  char- 
acter. I  was  vehemently  attacked  for  this  criticism, 
one  of  my  critics  citing  as  a  witness  against  me  Mr.  E. 
T.  Raymond,  who  had  just  then  published  a  biography 
of  Mr.  Balfour. 

Apparently  the  only  criticism  to  be  gathered  from 
that  volume,  in  the  opinion  of  this  vehement  gentleman, 
is  that  "Mr.  Balfour  fails  in  energy."  As  for  mean- 
ness, "there  is  not  a  trace  of  meanness  in  Mr.  Balfour's 
nature,  though  there  may  be  a  touch  of  callousness." 

It  is  difficult  to  believe  that  this  declaration  was 
delivered  after  reading  a  book  which  contains  the  story 
of  Mr.  Balfour's  dealings  with  Mr.  Ritchie,  Lord  George 
Hamilton,  and  Lord  Balfour  of  Burleigh — that  episode 
in  which,  to  get  rid  of  those  charing  Free  Traders,  he  hid 
from  the  knowledge  of  every  member  of  his  Cabinet, 
with  the  solitary  exception  of  the  honest  and  bewildered 
Duke  of  Devonshire,  whom  he  desired  to  keep,  the  all- 


128  THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

important  fact  that  he  had  Mr.  Joseph  Chamberlain's 
resignation  in  his  pocket. 

In  The  Mirrors  of  Downing  Street  I  did  not  go  so  far 
as  to  tell  this  story  in  full;  I  merely  suggested  it;  but 
here  it  is,  in  the  volume  which  my  critic  uses  to  vindicate 
Mr.  Balfour's  character,  told  as  stolidly  as  any  police- 
man could  tell  in  the  witness-box  the  story  of  a  three- 
card  trick. 

What  else  does  Mr.  Raymond  say  of  Mr.  Balfour? 
He  tells  us  that  this  patriotic  statesman,  this  disinter- 
ested great  gentleman,  who  is  so  indifferent  to  place  and 
power,  ' '  could  ill  endure  the  comradeship  of  equals, ' '  and 
that  in  forming  a  Cabinet,  a  Cabinet  to  be  charged  with  the 
destinies  of  the  British  Empire,  he  "took  care,  with  re- 
gard to  his  own  appointments,  not  to  encourage  men 
who  could  by  any  possibility  threaten  his  position." 

He  was  compared,  about  the  time  of  Mr.  Churchill's 
secession,  to  a  beech-tree:  very  beautiful,  but  nothing 
could  grow  under  its  shade. 

Mr.  Raymond  proceeds : 

As  the  older  politicians,  the  Goschens  and  Hicks- 
Beaches,  dropped  out,  he  filled  their  places  with  those 
who,  through  character,  mind,  or  circumstance,  were 
likely  to  develop  no  inconvenient  individuality.  Whether 
it  was  his  brother,  or  his  kinsman,  or  his  friend  whom  he 
elevated,  the  understanding  was  the  same;  they  were  to 
be  less  Ministers  of  the  Crown  than  retainers  of  Mr. 
Balfour. 


MANNERS  129 

Here  is  another  paragraph : 

Not  for  the  first  time  or  the  last  in  his  life  he  overdid 
things  through  simple  ignorance  of  the  sensitiveness  of 
the  populace  where  it  suspects  any  breach  of  the  English 
tradition  of  fair  play. 

And  this : 

Mr.  Balfour  could  trust  nobody;  it  is  only  fair  to  add 
that  very  few  trusted  him. 

What,  then,  is  the  value  of  Mr.  Balfour's  manners? 

As  for  Mr.  Raymond,  I  take  the  liberty  of  saying 
he  would  have  arrived  at  a  truer  measure  of  his  hero  had 
his  knees  not  crooked  quite  so  obviously  in  approaching 
this  "exquisite  Aramis  of  politics."  He  has  written 
an  indictment,  but  with  a  trembling  hand.  At  the  end, 
rather  horrified  by  what  he  has  done,  he  throws  up  his 
trembling  hands  with  the  exclamation,  "What  a  strange 
and  elusive  personality!"  This  is  not  judgment,  it  is 
surrender. 

To  the  true  historian  no  personality  is  elusive. 
He  measures  all  by  the  same  standard,  looking  at  them, 
not  to  see  what  interesting  things  he  can  say  about  these 
candidates  for  Olympus,  but  only  to  take  their  true  and 
absolute  measure.  He  asks  of  each  one  of  them :  ' '  Was 
this  man  truthful?  Was  he  earnest?  Was  he  unself- 
ish?" And  then  he  looks  at  the  man's  work,  and 
asks  "Did  it  enrich  the  poor,  comfort  the  sorrowful, 
strengthen  the  weak,  inspire  the  strong?     Did  it  bring 


i3o  THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

glory  to  his  nation,  and  peace  to  mankind?  What  did 
it  accomplish  for  the  higher  life  of  the  human  race? " 

Measure  Mr.  Balfour  by  the  same  standards  with 
which  history  has  measured  Abraham  Lincoln,  Mazzini, 
and  Gladstone,  and  where  is  his  place  among  the 
immortals? 

The  more  we  consider  his  charm,  his  powers,  and  his 
advantages  the  greater  must  be  our  condemnation. 
For  every  man's  achievement  should  be  judged  by  two 
things — his  gifts  and  his  opportunities. 

One  of  the  traits  in  Mr.  Balfour's  character  to  which 
I  drew  attention  in  The  Mirrors  of  Downing  Street  was 
his  indifference  to  his  servants.  Mr.  Raymond  makes 
a  very  interesting  reply  to  this  criticism: 

Not  knowing  how  he  treats  his  servants,  I  have  not 
accused  him  of  treating  them  badly. 

I  take  it  there  are  only  two  ways  of  getting  accurate 
knowledge  of  such  a  point.  One  must  have  been  a 
servant  of  Mr.  Balfour,  or  one  must  have  been  on  con- 
fidential terms  with  a  servant  of  Mr.  Balfour.  Never 
having  worn  the  Whittingeham  livery,  never  having  had 
a  friend  who  has  worn  that  livery,  his  personality  in  this 
regard  has  certainly  eluded  me.  But  I  am  not  in  the  least 
ashamed  of  omitting  from  an  appraisement  of  Mr.  Balfour 
the  point  of  view  of  the  servants'  hall. 

It  will,  be  observed  that  Mr.  Raymond  expresses  in 
this  passage  a  contempt  for  servants.  That  is  import- 
ant. I  pass  over  his  obviously  vain  suggestion  that  a 
man  can  tell  how  his  friends  and  acquaintances  treat 


MANNERS  131 

their  servants  only  by  becoming  one  of  those  servants 
himself.  I  pass  over  this  in  order  to  lay  particular 
stress  on  the  very  repellent  attitude  to  domestic 
servants  which  Mr.  Raymond  strikes  in  this  passage, 
evidently  in  the  belief  that  he  is  thoroughly  in  the 
fashion,  as  indeed  he  is,  but  without  realising  that  it  is  a 
thoroughly  bad  new  fashion. * 

For  myself,  I  gratefully  acknowledge,  I  spent  the 
most  Arcadian  part  of  my  boyhood  in  the  company 
of  grooms  and  gamekeepers,  that  I  loved  an  old  country 
nurse  far  more  than  my  grandmothers  and  aunts,  that 
I  paid  innumerable  visits  to  the  kitchen,  every  feature 
of  which  still  lives  affectionately  in  my  mind,  in  order  to 
get  sweet  things  from  a  most  delightful  old  cook,  and 
also  to  see  a  quite  elderly  laundry  woman  perform 
the  astounding  trick  of  jumping  from  the  seat  of  a  chair 
over  its  back.  Nor  did  my  parents  ever  forbid  my 
brothers  and  me  from  accepting  invitations  to  tea  in 
her  cottage,  most  kindly  offered  to  us  by  the  coachman's 
wife.  In  fact,  looking  back  on  those  early  years,  I 
seem  to  remember,  much  more  clearly  than  the  people 
of  my  own  class,  the  characters  and  personalities  of 
my  father's  servants  and  the  villagers  who  surrounded 
us,  particularly  the  poachers,  in  whose  cottages  we  were 

1  Mr.  Wilfred  Blunt  records  a  conversation  with  Mr.  Hyndman  on 
the  subject  of  Winston  Churchill.  "They  tell  me,"  said  Mr.  Hynd- 
man, "he  is  rude  and  brutal  with  servants."  Mr.  Blunt  assured  him 
that  this  was  not  so,  "and  he  was  glad  to  hear  it."  Both  these  men  are 
gentlemen  (My  Diaries,  Part  II.,  p.306.). 


i32  THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

always  made  extremely  welcome,  no  matter  what  was 
the  state  of  our  boots. 

This  may  seem  shocking,  or  even  unbelievable,  to 
Mr.  Raymond.  But  I  would  assure  him  few  things  were 
more  charmingly  characteristic  of  the  old-fashioned 
English  home  than  the  affectionate  relations  which 
existed  between  the  family  and  its  faithful  servants. 
The  beautiful  old  Duchess  of  Abercorn,  for  example, 
was  known  to  go  rat-hunting  with  a  stable  boy  even 
when  she  was  ninety  years  of  age,  and  there  was  not  a 
servant  in  her  house  with  whose  family  affairs  she  was 
not  perfectly  and  even  affectionately  acquainted.  Lord 
Lansdowne,  as  Governor-General  of  Canada,  had  one 
of  his  footmen  as  a  curler  in  the  Rideau  Hall  team. 
Mr.  G.  W.  E.  Russell  had  no  truer  friends  than  his 
butler  and  his  cook,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  George  Payne,  to 
whom  he  bequeathed  almost  everything  he  possessed. 
One  of  the  Wyndham  boys  is  described  by  Mr.  Blunt 
on  a  visit  to  Clouds  in  the  following  manner:  "He  is 
very  good-looking,  and  spends  most  of  his  time  with  the 
servants  in  the  pantry  and  the  housekeeper's  room, 
where  he  talks  nonsense  to  the  maids,  and  helps  the 
footmen  to  clean  the  knives."  And  of  the  other 
children  at  Clouds  we  read:  "They  spent  the  day 
making  a  grand  picnic  with  the  servants  and  govern- 
esses." Mr.  Samuel  Butler  lavished  his  affections  on 
no  one  so  completely  as  his  servant  Alfred,  whose  place 
in  history  is  more  secure  than  Mr.  Raymond's.     Per- 


MANNERS  133 

haps  Mr.  Raymond,  who  is  a  journalist,  will  be  more 
astonished  by  the  following  incident.  I  remember 
speaking  to  Lord  Northcliffe  on  one  occasion  of  a 
very  intelligent  footman  who  acted  as  my  valet  at 
Sutton  Place.  Lord  Northcliffe,  who  is  entirely  free 
from  all  snobbishness,  replied  with  enthusiasm:  "I'm 
so  glad  you've  talked  to  him.  He's  a  very  clever  young 
fellow.  I'm  helping  him  in  his  education.  I  rather 
think  he  will  do  something  in  the  world." 

This  matter  of  the  treatment  of  servants  is  worthy 
of  mention,  because  one  of  the  worst  characteristics  of 
modern  manners  is  a  spirit  of  selfishness,  conceit,  and 
snobbishness  which  more  and  more  tends  to  separate 
the  various  classes  of  the  community.  It  is  a  spirit 
which  entirely  destroys  the  idea  of  the  human  family. 
We  are  ceasing  to  think  of  others. 

Lord  Frederic  Hamilton  has  noticed  this  change  in 
The  Days  Before  Yesterday:1 

Neither  my  father  nor  my  mother  ever  dined  out  on 
Sunday,  nor  did  they  invite  people  to  dinner  on  that  day, 
for  they  wished  to  give  those  in  their  employment  a  day 
of  rest.  All  quite  hopelessly  Victorian !  for,  after  all,  why 
should  people  ever  think  of  anybody  but  themselves  ? 

Present-day  hostesses  tell  me  that  all  young  men,  and 
most  girls,  are  kind  enough  to  flick  cigarette  ash  all  over 
their  drawing-rooms,  and  considerately  throw  lighted 
cigarette-ends  on  the  fine  old  Persian  carpets,  and  burn 
holes  in  pieces  of  valuable  old  French  furniture.     Of 

1  The  Days  Before  Yesterday,  by  Lord  Frederic  Hamilton. 


134  THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

course  it  would  be  too  much  trouble  to  fetch  an  ash-tray, 
or  to  rise  to  throw  lighted  cigarette-ends  into  the  grate. 
The  young  generation  have  never  been  brought  up  to 
take  trouble,  nor  to  consider  other  people. 

There  you  have  the  root  cause  of  all  bad  manners, 
whatever  form  they  take — selfishness.  And  selfishness, 
what  is  it,  if  we  examine  it  with  attention,  but  a  deep 
and  most  disfiguring  spiritual  defect? 

As  soon  as  we  realise  this  truth,  we  perceive  at  once 
that  manners — the  word  Hobbes  employed  for  morals 
— are  something  much  more  important  to  the  social  and 
political  life  of  a  great  nation  than  the  physical  graces 
offered  to  mankind  at  the  hands  of  a  professor  in  deport- 
ment. They  are  the  style  of  a  nation — the  mark  it  is 
making  on  the  civilised  progress  of  mankind. 

But  instead  of  a  beautiful  and  noble  life,  a  life  leading 
upward  from  one  spiritual  desire  to  another,  upward 
and  onward  to  Dante's  indistinctly  apprehended  bliss 
on  which  the  soul  may  rest,  instead  of  this  we  have  at 
present  the  life  of  the  jazz,  the  life  of  the  Victory 
Dance.  Mr.  Noyes  has  described  this  new  form  of  the 
social  rout,  this  new  spirit  of  the  national  life,  in  memor- 
able verses,  of  which  I  am  permitted  by  his  publishers, 
Messrs.  Cassell,  to  print  one : 

The  cymbals  crash, 

And  the  dancers  walk, 
With  long  silk  stockings 

And  arms  of  chalk, 


MANNERS  135 

Butterfly  skirts, 

And  white  breasts  bare, 
And  shadows  of  dead  men 

Watching  'em  there. 

Sir  Ian  Hamilton,  heartbroken  by  the  Peace  of 
Versailles,  has  published  in  the  John  Keats  Memorial 
Volume  an  even  more  scornful  indictment.  He  speaks 
of  the  angel  who  led  our  boyhood  to  the  sacrifice  of  their 
lives,  an  angel  of  spiritual  exaltation,  and  then  of 
Versailles,  where  "the  diplomats  danced  with  their 
typists."  His  soul  rebels  against  this  anti-climax. 
The  banners  of  self-sacrifice  have  been  dragged  through 
the  dirt.  The  names  of  the  valiant  dead  are  writ  in 
water. 

"Who  has  quenched  that  new  star  of  Bethlehem 
which  still  throughout  the  War  went  before  the  fighters 
giving  them  some  respite  from  their  pain?  Why  is  it 
that  peace  has  suddenly  made  the  vaulted  heavens 
as  black  as  the  socket  from  which  some  fiend  has  torn 
the  eye?" 

Ah,  in  everything  we  have  lost  the  secret.  We 
think  not  of  others,  but  of  ourselves. 

"It  is,  of  course,"  says  Lord  Frederic  Hamilton, 
' '  the  easy  fashion  now  to  sneer  at  Victorian  standards. 
To  my  mind  they  embody  all  that  is  clean  and  sound  in 
the  nation.  It  does  not  follow  that  because  Victorians 
revelled  in  hideous  wallpapers  and  loved  ugly  furniture, 
that  therefore  their  points-of-view  were  mistaken  ones. 


i36  THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

There  are  things  more  important  than  wallpapers. 
They  certainly  liked  the  obvious  in  painting,  in  music, 
and  perhaps  in  literature,  but  it  hardly  seems  to  follow 
logically  from  that  that  their  conceptions  of  a  man's 
duty  to  his  wife,  family,  and  country  were  necessarily 
false  ones.  They  were  not  afflicted  with  the  perpetual 
modern  restlessness,  nor  did  they  spend  'their  time  in 
nothing  else,  but  either  to  tell,  or  to  hear,  some  new 
thing' ;  still,  all  their  ideas  seem  to  me  eminently  sweet 
and  wholesome. ' ' 


CHAPTER  IX 

EXAMPLES  IN   LOVE 

It  is  the  unconscious,  rather  than  the  conscious,  which  is 
the  important  factor  in  personality  and  intelligence.  The 
unconscious  furnishes  the  formative  material  out  of  which 
our  judgments,  our  beliefs,  our  ideals,  and  our  characters  are 
shaped. — Morton  Prince. 

Before  marriage  this  question  should  be  put:  Will  you 
continue  to  be  satisfied  with  this  woman's  conversation  until  old 
age  ?    Everything  else  in  marriage  is  transitory. — Nietzsche. 

When  we  consider  that  a  son  born  into  a  family  of 
ancient  lineage  and  of  inspiring  traditions,  surrounded 
from  infancy  by  objects  of  the  greatest  beauty,  accus- 
tomed from  childhood  to  the  intimate  friendship  of  the 
great,  sent  for  his  education  to  a  school  like  Eton,  and  a 
university  like  Oxford,  when  we  consider  that  a  child  so 
caressed  by  fortune  and  so  nurtured  by  privilege  does 
very  often,  as  the  first  free  act  of  his  manhood,  marry 
someone  quite  unsuitable  to  his  place  in  the  social 
hierarchy,  such  as  a  chorus  girl  out  of  a  comic  opera,  we 
have  reason  to  conclude  that  something  was  want- 
ing in  his  circumstances,  or  his  upbringing,  which  was 
essential  to  wisdom  and  happiness. 

137 


i38  THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

It  is  now  a  commonplace  of  political  reform  that 
education  is  a  chief  safeguard  of  the  state.  Our  politi- 
cians tell  us  that  when  the  democracy  is  well  housed 
and  thoroughly  educated,  all  those  economic  problems 
which  darken  the  future  of  civilisation  will  rise  like  mists 
and  leave  humanity  in  the  full  sunlight  of  millennium. 

But  democracy  can  never  be  better  housed  than 
Fashion,  and  never  more  carefully  educated  than 
the  sons  of  Fashion.  If,  then,  with  all  the  blessings 
of  beautiful  houses  and  a  system  of  education  conse- 
crated by  centuries  of  piety,  the  sons  of  Fashion  com- 
mit the  greatest  of  follies  at  the  outset  of  their  career, 
and  afterwards  often  live  in  a  contemptible  manner, 
spending  their  mature  manhood,  these  sons  of  aris- 
tocracy, merely  as  spectators  of  the  national  life — the 
destinies  of  which  are  so  largely  in  the  hands  of  self- 
educated  men  from  the  lower  ranks  of  society — how 
shall  we  look  for  salvation  to  the  schoolmaster  and  the 
architect? 

Something  else,  manifestly,  is  essential  to  safety. 

It  is  scarcely  an  exaggeration  to  say  that  great 
numbers  of  young  men  in  fashionable  society  pick  up 
their  wives  just  as  a  sensualist  picks  up  a  woman  in 
the  street.  They  are  attracted  by  artifices  which  the 
prostitute  has  brought  to  perfection  by  long  practice; 
they  are  knocked  over  by  a  calculated  audacity,  an 
unblushing  but  frequently  an  affected  animalism,  a 
licentiousness  which  is  often  as  much  put  on  as  the 


EXAMPLES  IN  LOVE  139 

complexion  or  the  eyebrows;  they  lose  their  heads 
to  the  heel  of  a  shoe  and  their  hearts  to  the  suffocation 
of  a  scent — these  young  men  who  have  been  brought 
up  with  every  advantage  of  environment,  education, 
and  tradition. 

The  chorus  girl  whom  they  find  so  seductive  at  a 
table  in  a  restaurant,  so  intoxicating  in  the  padded  re- 
cesses of  a  motor-car,  is  a  person  of  no  education  and  of 
few  morals ;  she  would  not  for  the  world  walk  the  pave- 
ments at  night,  but  she  would  not  scruple  to  sell  herself 
into  a  union,  legal  or  illegal,  with  a  rich  man  for  whom 
she  entertains  no  deep  affection.  She  belongs,  as  a  rule, 
to  the  lower  middle  classes,  and  has  spent  her  childhood 
in  the  suburbs.  Her  solitary  cleverness  is  a  faculty  for 
imitation;  she  can  affect  a  drawl  of  boredom,  has  all 
the  phrases  of  smart  society  on  the  tip  of  her  tongue, 
and  can  powder  her  chin  in  public  with  the  very  gesture 
of  a  duke's  daughter.  Fundamentally  she  is  as  igno- 
rant as  a  Red  Indian. 

That  a  young  Englishman  of  the  highest  class  in 
the  land,  with  all  the  brilliant  and  beautiful  women  of 
the  world  to  choose  from,  should  select  such  a  trivial 
little  baggage  as  this  for  the  mate  of  his  soul  and  the 
companion  of  his  life,  is  not  a  matter  for  amusement  or 
amazement,  but  a  fact  of  great  social  importance. 

It  brings  us,  I  think,  face  to  face  with  an  evil  which  is 
corrupting  the  whole  body  of  civilisation  like  a  cancel? — 
an  arrest  of  moral  growth,  a  refusal  of  vital  tissues  to 


i4o  THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

follow  the  law  of  their  being,  a  stoppage  in  the  develop- 
ment of  the  human  soul. 

Coleridge  saw  this  danger  long  ago,  and  realised 
its  infinite  importance : 

All  the  evil  achieved  by  Hobbes,  and  the  whole  School 
of  Materialists,  will  appear  inconsiderable  if  it  be  com- 
pared with  the  mischief  effected  and  occasioned  by  the 
sentimental  philosophy  of  Sterne,  and  his  numerous 
imitators. 

The  vilest  appetites  and  the  most  remorseless  incon- 
stancy towards  their  objects,  acquired  the  titles  of  the 
Heart,  the  irresistible  Feelings,  the  too  tender  Sensibility; 
and  if  the  frosts  of  prudence,  the  icy  chains  of  human  law, 
thawed  and  vanished  at  the  genial  warmth  of  Human 
Nature,  who  could  help  it?     It  was  an  amiable  weakness ! 

About  this  time,  too,  the  profanation  of  the  word 
Love  rose  to  its  height. 

The  French  naturalists,  Buffon  and  others,  borrowed  it 
from  the  sentimental  novelists ;  the  Swedish  and  English 
philosophers  took  the  contagion;  and  the  Muse  of  Science 
condescended  to  seek  admission  into  the  salons  of  Fashion 
and  Frivolity,  rouged  like  a  harlot,  and  with  the  harlot's 
wanton  leer. 

He  goes  on  to  say,  in  words  which  after  a  hundred 
years  are  still  applicable  to  the  condition  of  human 
society : 

I  know  not  how  the  annals  of  guilt  could  be  better 
forced  into  the  service  of  virtue  than  by  such  a  comment 
on  the  present  paragraph  as  would  be  afforded  by  a 
selection  from  the  sentimental  correspondence  produced 
in  courts  of  justice  within  the  last  thirty  years,  fairly 


EXAMPLES  IN  LOVE  141 

translated  into  the  true  meaning  of  the  words  and  the 
natural  object  and  purpose  of  the  infamous  writers. 


The  sentimental  correspondence  produced  in  the 
divorce  court  of  our  own  days  seems  to  me  a  document 
of  the  gravest  sociological  importance.  No  one  can 
read  the  tragic  or  stupid  effusions  of  respondents  and 
co-respondents  without  an  immense  wonder  at  the 
ignorance  of  the  human  race,  and  a  profound  com- 
passion for  its  victims.  Those  letters,  if  we  read  them 
with  the  sympathy  they  deserve,  remembering,  in  spite 
of  their  construction  and  grammar,  their  crudeness  and 
naivetS,  their  vulgarity  and  slang,  that  they  are  written 
by  actual  men  and  women,  men  and  women  anxious  for 
happiness  and  capable  of  suffering,  men  and  women, 
too,  whose  right-thinking  is  of  importance  to  the 
rest  of  us,  those  letters,  I  think,  witness  to  a  colossal 
blunder  on  the  part  of  society. 

After  all,  the  young  man  of  Fashion  and  the  powdered 
girl  from  the  chorus  are  only  children.  They  are  at  the 
door  of  experience,  on  the  threshold  of  freedom,  when 
they  make  their  disastrous  mistake.  If  the  youth  is 
persuaded  that  he  can  be  permanently  happy  in  the 
society  of  a  girl  no  better  educated,  no  sweeter-minded, 
no  purer  and  holier  in  the  true  sense  of  these  words,  than 
the  strumpets  of  Coventry  Street;  and  if,  on  her  part, 
the  girl  is  convinced  that  the  summum  bonum  is  wealth, 
that  possessions  are  the  end  of  existence,  that  a  title  or 


i42  THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

a  fortune  solves  all  the  difficulties  of  life ;  if  this  be  so,  then 
the  fault  is  not  in  themselves  that  they  are  such  moral 
and  intellectual  underlings,  but  in  the  state  of  society. 

When  I  consider  society's  preparation  for  marriage, 
and  its  whole  attitude  towards  love,  I  regard  the  divorce 
court  not  only  as  an  inevitable  institution  of  civilisation, 
but  as  one  of  the  most  merciful  of  our  humanitarian  and 
philanthropic  organisations — indeed  the  kindest  of  all 
rescue  societies.  Like  Coleridge,  I  regard  marriage  by 
the  Registrar  as  "reverential  to  Christianity";  for  it 
seems  to  me  the  very  height  of  blasphemy  that  people 
who  marry  without  the  noblest  conception  of  love  in 
their  souls  should  approach  the  altar  of  God  and  there 
make  vows  which  only  the  sweetest  purity  can  conse- 
crate and  only  the  most  religious  virtue  can  hope  to 
keep.  Far  better  that  the  fashionable  marriage  of  our 
times  should  have  no  more  religious  pretensions  than 
the  hiring  of  a  piano  or  the  engaging  of  a  bedroom,  and 
that  as  soon  as  the  unhappy  couple  have  come  to  their 
senses,  and  realise  that  to  live  together  in  daily  com- 
munion of  mind  and  soul  is  an  intolerable  torture,  they 
should  be  set  free  to  make,  if  not  a  wiser  choice,  at  least 
another  shot. 

No  society  with  such  a  spirit  as  ours  has  the  smallest 
right  to  condemn  divorce.  Its  children  not  only  have 
an  absolute  title  to  divorce,  but  just  cause  to  bring 
against  society,  out  of  their  own  miseries,  an  indictment 
charging  it  with  the  crimes  of  the  pimp  and  the  pander. 


EXAMPLES  IN  LOVE  143 

Divorce  can  be  regarded  only  as  reprehensible  in  a 
society  which  makes  the  elevation  of  love  a  chief  object 
of  education,  and  itself  sets  the  noblest  examples  in  this 
highest  of  all  human  relationships.  The  children  of 
devoted  parents,  parents  who  sacrificed  everything  to 
the  highest  spiritual  interests  of  their  children,  are  alone 
without  excuse  in  that  court  of  mercy. 

No  one  will  claim  that  Fashion  labours  in  this 
direction;  but  how  many  perceive  that  the  whole 
tendency  of  Fashion  in  this  matter  is  towards  the 
degradation  of  love?  Almost  every  influence  it  pos- 
sesses, so  far  as  I  am  able  to  judge,  is  brought  to  bear 
on  love  with  the  sole  purpose  of  degrading  what  the 
sentimentalist  only  profaned. 

I  am  not  speaking  of  a  direct  didactic  addressed  by 
society  to  the  consciousness  of  mankind.  I  am  speak- 
ing of  Atmosphere — that  power  which  penetrates  to  the 
huge  workshop  of  the  mind  which  we  now  call  the 
unconscious.  The  atmosphere  of  our  day,  lacking  the 
vigour  of  a  moral  purpose,  has  the  exhausting  and 
atrophying  closeness  of  a  hothouse.  It  is  created  by 
loose  thinking.  It  fills  the  air  with  multiplying  fallacies. 
It  preys  upon  the  unconscious  mind  with  a  thousand 
suggestions,  making  for  self-indulgence.  It  undoes 
without  effort  all  the  painful  work  of  the  schoolmaster. 
It  wipes  the  slate  clean  of  religion.  It  is  an  atmosphere 
inimical  to  moral  health  and  absolutely  destructive  of 
spiritual  aspiration. 


144  THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

We  must  be  honest  with  ourselves  and  confront 
the  truth  of  our  times.  The  profanation  of  love  by  the 
sentimentalist  has  ceased.  The  language  of  Sterne, 
which  moved  Coleridge  to  indignation,  moves  Fashion 
only  to  laughter;  all  that  antique  talk  of  sensibility 
is  held  in  derision,  as  out  of  date  now  as  the  fainting 
heroines  of  Thackeray  and  Dickens.  Society  to-day 
is  more  honest,  more  brutal.  It  has  ceased  to  make 
any  pretence  to  idealism.  Adultery  has  discarded  the 
romantic  cloak  of  Romeo,  and  comes  laughing  to  the 
assignation  in  the  modernised  undress  of  Don  Juan. 
The  whole  atmosphere  is  changed.  It  is  more 
honest.  It  is  more  loyal  to  the  lower  nature.  Love 
is  a  joke,  one  of  the  amusements,  one  of  the  ad- 
ventures, one  of  the  sports,  one  of  the  recreations 
of  society.  To  take  it  seriously  is  both  provincial 
and  dangerous.  It  must  be  treated  as  our  fathers 
treated  flirtation.  The  business  of  life  is  money; 
one  of  its  recreations,  like  bridge  or  golf,  is  the  sex- 
ual instinct.  The  romantic  woman  learns  at  her  first 
fence  that  she  must  choose  between  hysterics  and 
"lovers." 

This  atmosphere,  which  is  now  almost  universal 
throughout  society,  I  regard  as  fatal  to  the  higher 
life  of  the  human  race.  It  makes  passion  one  of  the 
indecencies  of  life — a  subject  for  grins  and  whispers, 
a  theme  for  revue,  an  opportunity  for  gossip,  a  matter 
on  all  fours  with  a  dirty  story.     It  is  a  destructive 


\    -  t 


Keystone  View  Co. 


COLONEL    CHARLES    REPINGTON 


EXAMPLES  IN  LOVE  145 

atmosphere.  It  kills  love  as  readily  as  an  abortionist 
kills  a  future  human  being. 

Perhaps  the  reader  will  pardon  me  if  I  venture  to 
suggest  to  Fashion  a  moment's  consideration  of  the 
pedigree  of  love.  I  should  not  dream  of  making  this 
suggestion  in  an  essay  of  the  present  character  were 
I  not  convinced  that  even  among  educated  people 
slovenliness  of  thought  may  lead  to  calamitous  conse- 
quences; as  witness  in  the  last  fifty  years  the  philo- 
sophical havoc  wrought  among  educated  people  by  so 
foolish  a  phrase  as  the  struggle  for  existence,  few  men 
perceiving  that  a  creature  in  existence  cannot  possibly 
struggle  for  what  it  already  possesses,  and  that  the 
real  struggle  in  nature — a  key  to  the  spiritual  mys- 
tery—  is  a  struggle  for  improvement,  and  that  the 
greatest  force  in  that  struggle  is  not  egotism,  self- 
ishness, and  brutal  aggression,  but  a  most  significant 
co-operation. 

Let  Fashion  ask  itself  how  it  comes  to  exist.  Let 
it  look  at  the  stage  on  which  the  human  comedy  is 
enacted.  That  stage  has  a  history;  all  the  players 
have  a  pedigree;  history  and  pedigree  alike  stretch 
back  into  an  utterly  immeasurable  past.  Life,  what- 
ever we  choose  to  make  it,  can  only  be  treated  lightly  or 
derisively  by  a  lunatic.  It  is  far  too  old  a  thing,  too 
wonderful  an  antiquity,  to  be  treated  like  one  of  the 
crazes  of  the  last  season.  It  is  worthy  of  interest, 
worthy,  perhaps,  of  reverence  and  gratitude.     Only  in 


146  THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

the  delusions  of  an  idiot  can  it  be  divorced  from  its 
context  of  the  eternal  existence. 

There  was  once  no  universe.  The  horizons  of  space 
stretched  onwards  into  a  distance  which  had  neither 
boundary  wall  nor  ultimate  sheer  precipice  descending 
with  a  rush  into  the  void  of  nothingness. 

There  was  no  time.  Duration  was  a  dial  with  neither 
figures  nor  hands. 

There  was  no  life.  The  conjugation  of  existence 
rested  at  the  First  Person  of  the  Present  Tense:  I  AM. 

Out  of  this  just  comprehensible  abidance  of  the 
Infinite  within  the  Infinite  came  the  birth  of  life. 

There  was  movement.  In  this  movement  there  was 
direction.    The  universe  was  born. 

Of  that  stupendous  creation  three  things  may  be 
affirmed  at  this  day  with  some  confidence:  it  is  the 
work  of  Mind,  it  is  altogether  too  huge  for  an  idle  fancy, 
and  love,  if  not  its  sole  object,  is  at  least  one  of  its 
preponderant  forces. 

So  far  as  our  planet  is  concerned  we  can  imagine 
its  history  without  many  of  the  means  which  appear  to 
have  moulded  its  destinies,  but  it  is  beyond  the  reach  of 
imagination  to  think  of  that  eventful  chronicle  without 
the  love  which  exists  in  the  tigress  for  its  cubs,  the  wren 
for  its  nestlings,  and  the  mother  for  her  children. 

Love,  then,  is  a  great  thing.  Even  as  lust  it  is  a  great 
thing.  For,  steadily  regarded,  lust  is  seen  as  the 
manger  used  by  evolution  for  the  first  cradle  of  self- 


EXAMPLES  IN  LOVE  147 

sacrifice.  Out  of  lust,  blind  animal  lust,  which  is  a 
clean  thing,  and  not  a  prurient  thing  like  a  Kirchner 
picture,  has  come  the  highest  love  we  know,  the  love 
which  takes  no  thought  for  itself. 

If  you  regard  the  common  love  of  man  and  woman 
just  as  it  is,  remembering  its  history,  and  seeing  what  it 
can  achieve,  you  will  find  that  it  is  not  to  be  placed 
where  Fashion  loves  to  place  it,  among  the  indecencies 
of  civilisation.  It  is  a  tremendous  thing  in  a  tremend- 
ous universe,  born  of  the  first  movement  of  Antecedent 
Existence,  and  bearing  in  its  seed  the  highest  purposes 
of  the  creative  power;  something  to  be  exalted,  rever- 
enced, perfected ;  something  that  seems  as  though  it  had 
the  power,  as  nothing  else  on  earth,  to  make  gods  of  us, 
when  the  end  is  reached ;  something  which  only  a  devil 
could  profane,  and  in  which  only  a  fool  could  see  nothing 
for  marvel  and  thanksgiving. 

Such  is  the  love  which  brings  a  grin  to  painted  lips 
and  amusement  to  "clinkered  souls." 

Fashion,  I  hope,  will  observe  that  in  this  brief  sum- 
mary of  evolution  I  have  made  no  appeal  to  religion, 
and  advanced  no  claim  for  love  which  is  not  justified 
by  the  findings  of  physical  science.  I  am  anxious  to 
persuade  people  on  the  grounds  of  reason  alone  that  love 
is  a  respectable  thing.  It  has  a  pedigree  whose  origin 
is  lost  to  us  only  in  the  origin  of  the  Absolute.  It  has 
a  history  which  is  as  sublime  as  the  history  of  the  visible 
universe.    And   at   every   point   in   that   mysterious 


148  THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

struggle  for  perfection  which  we  call  evolution  it  is 
found  working  for  the  destiny  towards  which  all  crea- 
tion is  moving,  and  of  which  no  man  has  been  able  to 
imagine  the  end. 

To  degrade  love,  then,  to  make  it  something  base  or 
trivial,  is  to  interfere  with  the  first  mechanism  of  evolu- 
tion. And  to  do  this  is  as  much  to  endanger  the  safety 
of  the  human  race  as  squirting  corrosive  acid  into  the 
eye  would  endanger  sight.  Fashion,  when  it  plays  with 
love,  is  indeed  playing  with  a  fire  that  may  consume 
the  house  of  life.  For  love  is  essential  to  existence ;  and 
the  evolution  of  love  is  essential  to  higher  existence.  If 
we  use  this  tremendous  power  loosely  we  hinder  its 
purpose ;  if  we  use  it  vilely  we  bring  creation  to  a  stand- 
still. For  we  transitory  creatures  in  an  endless  chain  of 
existence,  receiving  from  the  past  and  giving  to  the 
future,  we  are  the  reeds  through  which  this  power  would 
blow  the  hymn  of  creation,  the  laudamus  of  the  universe, 
the  lyric  of  the  human  heart ;  and  if  we  behave  as  if  for 
us  and  for  us  alone — for  our  vulgarities,  vanities,  inde- 
cencies, and  egoisms — everything  that  exists  has  been 
created,  we  silence  the  music  of  God,  and  in  ourselves  at 
least  bring  the  divine  purpose  to  a  standstill. 

Domestic  unhappiness  is  a  consequence  of  wrong 
thinking  in  society.  Wrong-thinking  is  fatal  to  right- 
living.  The  atmosphere  is  charged  with  illusion,  and 
illusion  is  the  fertile  parent  of  disaster.  However 
beautifully  a  child  may  be  surrounded  in  his  nonage, 


EXAMPLES  IN  LOVE  149 

and  however  carefully  he  may  be  educated  in  his  youth, 
he  comes  at  manhood  into  a  world  which  is  apparently 
organised  solely  for  the  many  purposes  of  self-indul- 
gence, and  which  is  certainly  not  organised  for  any  far- 
off  divine  event,  a  world  whose  whole  thesis  of  life  is 
vitiated  by  a  false  premise. 

In  this  world,  blinded  by  its  artificial  brilliance 
and  bewildered  by  its  rush  towards  excitement  and  sen- 
sation, in  this  world,  where  there  is  no  shrine  for  wor- 
ship and  no  altar  for  silence  and  reflection,  in  this  cyni- 
cal and  disillusioned  world,  where  to  be  serious  is  to  be 
deserted  as  a  bore,  and  to  be  virtuous  is  to  be  ridiculed 
as  a  prig,  the  youth  makes  his  choice  of  a  wife,  and  the 
girl  makes  her  choice  of  a  husband. 

They  are  brought  together  by  festivity.  Their 
personalities  touch  in  a  racket.  Their  first  embrace, 
to  the  music  of  a  negro  band,  is  made  in  a  dance 
from  the  jungle.  Nothing  in  the  atmosphere  suggests 
seriousness.  No  one  utters  a  warning,  no  one  breathes 
a  caution.  On  the  contrary,  to  think  is  to  find  oneself 
stranded.  Flung  into  the  rush  and  deafened  by  the 
noise,  the  one  thing  to  do  is  to  keep  one's  feet;  to  keep 
one's  head — that  is  impossible,  and  useless. 

Everything  declares  that  life  is  a  masquerade,  and 
self-indulgence  the  sole  purpose  of  creation.  The 
daughter  learns  from  her  mother,  the  son  from  his 
father.  Everyone  is  selfish.  There  is  only  one  reason- 
able pursuit — a  good  time.    And  this  is  the  good  time; 


i5o  THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

this  life  of  pleasure,  this  life  of  eating  and  drinking,  of 
dancing  and  flirting,  of  crowds  and  crushes,  of  adven- 
tures in  sex,  of  licence  and  cynicism,  of  excitement  and 
selfishness,  of  money  and  ostentation.  "Is  he  rich? 
Then,  my  dear,  why  hesitate?    Marry  him  at  once." 

It  is  in  such  an  atmosphere  as  this  that  the  marriages 
of  Fashion  are  made.  Youth  enters  by  the  gate  of 
comedy  and  goes  out  through  the  door  of  tragedy. 
The  embrace  of  the  jazz  is  dissolved  by  the  decree  abso- 
lute of  the  divorce  court. 

This  is  the  example  set  by  Fashion  in  a  matter  which 
is  foundational  to  the  safety  and  happiness  of  the  State. 

Civilisations,  let  us  assure  ourselves,  are  far  more 
vulnerable  on  their  domestic  side  than  on  their  economic 
side.  The  home  is  the  unit  of  the  nation.  Family  life 
is  its  great  assurance.  If  a  state  would  not  perish  it 
must  see  that  its  homes  are  the  altars  of  human  happi- 
ness, must  realise  that  its  economic  activity  has  for  its 
main  object  the  human  happiness  of  the  family.  A  bad 
example  in  this  matter  is  a  thousand  times  more  perilous 
than  any  propaganda  of  Bolshevism.  No  gospel  of 
anarchy,  indeed,  could  exist  for  nine  days  in  a  state 
founded  on  the  sure  satisfaction  of  family  life.  It  is 
only  by  the  door  of  domestic  unhappiness  that  political 
unrest  enters  a  community. 

There  was  a  time,  as  Sainte-Beuve  says,  when  the 
follies  and  sins  of  Fashion  were  prevented,  by  the  ex- 
clusiveness  of  society  itself,  from  penetrating  to  the 


EXAMPLES  IN  LOVE  151 

bourgeoisie  and  the  proletariat.  But  since  the  day  of 
Sainte-Beuve  few  things  done  by  Fashion  lack  the  ser- 
vice of  a  publicity  agent.  Indeed,  Fashion  itself  tells 
the  story;  Fashion  itself  gives  its  photograph  to  the 
world.  There  is  no  shame.  There  is  no  desire  even  for 
the  humility  of  anonymity.  Fashion,  flattered  and 
amused  by  the  invitation  of  the  other  classes,  is  now 
as  ready  to  bare  its  bosom  to  the  lending  library  as  to 
give  a  testimonial  to  a  wig-maker  or  maker  of  com- 
plexions. The  cry  of  the  very  lowest  stratum  is  now 
the  cry  for  "a  good  time." 

The  blunder  of  Fashion  is  caused  by  forgetfulness. 
It  has  forgotten  the  past  of  humanity,  and  it  forgets 
that  humanity  has  a  future.  It  occupies  its  place  in 
time  without  gratitude  and  without  any  feeling  of 
responsibility.  The  past  is  a  blank,  the  future  a  void. 
The  long  ancestry  of  mankind  is  no  more  to  it  than  aback 
number  of  Punch;  the  future  destinies  of  the  human 
race  no  more  to  it  than  the  weather  of  the  next  century. 

It  is  just  for  want  of  this  sense  of  proportion  that 
Fashion  has  lost  the  capacity  for  seriousness.  It  sees 
the  cosmos  in  a  ballroom,  and  the  human  race  in  its  own 
mirror.  It  is  an  inch  thinking  of  itself  as  the  whole 
mile,  a  wave  thinking  of  itself  as  all  the  ocean,  a  syllable 
in  Hamlet  thinking  of  itself  as  the  soul  of  Shakespeare. 

It  sees  creation  so  completely  out  of  perspective, 
and  so  totally  ignores  the  whole  chronicle  of  history, 
that  it  has  even  lost  the  sense  of  a  local  patriotism. 


152  THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

It  does  not  feel  itself  in  any  way  responsible  for  the  wel- 
fare of  England.  And  so  it  comes  about  that  Fashion 
recklessly  sets  examples  which  are  fatal  to  the  stability 
of  England's  national  greatness,  examples  which  menace 
the  very  foundations  of  English  character,  examples  of 
which  the  worst  of  all  is  this  example  in  the  field  of  love 
— an  example  which  corrupts  human  life  at  its  very 
source  and  reduces  the  great  security  of  national  exist- 
ence to  a  problem  for  discussion  among  novelists. 

When  a  school  of  philosophers  tells  me  that  many 
mysteries  in  psychology  may  be  traced  back  to  "sex 
repressions,"  I  wonder  if  it  has  never  occurred  to  this 
school  that  what  it  regards  as  a  "repression"  may  in 
truth  be  an  "obsession,"  and  that  this  sediment  of  sex 
which  it  professes  to  find  in  so  many  minds  is  not  the 
consequences  of  evolution,  but  the  result  of  mass 
suggestion — symptomatic  of  an  immoral  age,  but  not 
characteristic  of  mankind  in  its  health  and  sanity. 

Where  love  is  lacking,  "sex"  lurks.  Love  is  a 
cleansing  power;  "sex"  is  nothing  more  than  lust  in  a 
state  of  decomposition. 

Does  it  not  demand  a  diseased  mind  to  admit  the 
contention  of  Remy  de  Gourmont  that  the  statuary 
of  Greece  is  immortal  because  it  is  sexual,  and  sexual 
because  it  is  nude?  Is  not  the  "sex"  in  the  mind  of  de 
Gourmont,  and  not  in  the  statuary?  There  are  minds 
which  are  like  a  printer's  error:  they  can  only  see 
immorality  in  immortality. 


CHAPTER  X 

WOMANHOOD 

The  mother  of  debauchery  is  not  joy,  but  joylessness. — 
Nietzsche. 

My  mother's  character  was  a  blend  of  extreme  simplicity 
and  great  dignity,  with  a  limitless  gift  of  sympathy  for  others. 
I  can  say  with  perfect  truth  that,  throughout  her  life,  she  suc- 
ceeded in  winning  the  deep  love  of  all  those  who  were  brought 
into  constant  contact  with  her. — Lord  Frederic  Hamilton. 

One  markedly  new  thing  in  English  life  has  accom- 
panied the  decline  in  morals  and  manners.  This  new 
thing  is  a  new  spirit  in  women. 

The  Times  recently  reported  Mr.  Justice  Horridge's 
summing  up  to  a  jury  in  these  words : 

You  have  to  try  to  consider  the  matter  of  the  co -re- 
spondent's conduct  from  the  point  of  view  of  society  as  it 
has  existed  since  the  War.  You  and  I  may  think  that  the 
good  old  times,  when  married  women  did  not  knock  about 
with  men  quite  so  much  as  they  do,  and  girls  did  not  go 
unchaperoned  into  ballrooms,  were  the  right  times.  We 
may  think  it  would  be  good  if  those  times  came  back 
again,  but  you  have  to  consider  this  case  from  the  point  of 
view  of  what  is  going  on  all  around  us. 

i53 


i54  THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

In  these  words  the  judge  gave  to  the  dramatis  persona 
of  our  age  a  new  character :  The  woman  who  knocks  about. 
The  expression  is  a  useful  one.  It  points  to  an  absence 
of  all  direction.  The  woman  who  knocks  about  is  not 
walking  to  the  devil  with  her  eyes  open.  She  is  not  court- 
ing disaster  with  a  guide  book  to  show  her  the  way.  She 
is  not  looking  for  trouble  with  a  microscope.  Her  peril 
is  absence  of  motive.  She  does  not  know  why  she  is  liv- 
ing. She  is  not  at  a  loose  end ;  existence  itself  is  a  loose 
end.     She  knocks  about,  like  a  cork  in  the  sea. 

The  Woman  Who  Knocks  About  has  superseded  the 
Particular  Woman. 

All  round  London  there  is  a  vast  and  spreading  circle 
of  villadom.  A  few  years  ago  these  suburbs  were  the 
strongholds  of  family  life.  Here  lived  people  who 
mocked  the  extravagances  of  fashionable  society,  and 
were  blissfully  unaware  of  its  deeper  iniquities.  The 
husbands  went  by  train  to  the  City;  the  house-proud 
wives  remained  at  home  with  the  children.  The  life  of 
each  little  community  centred  in  the  home,  and  had  its 
circumference  in  the  parish,  of  which  they  were  proud 
and  in  which  they  worked.  You  found  benevolence 
there,  a  sense  of  neighbourly  responsibility,  a  desire  for 
mental  improvement,  above  all  things,  self-sacrifice  for 
the  sake  of  the  children. 

To-day,  many  of  these  women  go  to  London  almost 
as  regularly  as  their  husbands  go  to  the  City.  They  are 
spoken  of  as  "Season  Ticket  Women."    Their  excuse 


WOMANHOOD  155 

is  the  shop — their  attraction  is  the  restaurant.  They 
have  contracted  a  passion  for  crowds,  for  adventures, 
for  excitement.  They  knock  about  with  other  people 
who  are  knocking  about.  In  a  garish  restaurant,  with 
an  orchestra  playing  dance  music,  and  crowds  of  people 
waiting  for  tables,  they  light  their  cigarettes,  drink 
their  liqueurs,  and  feel  that  they  are  at  the  very  centre 
of  fashionable  life. 

Not  many  of  these  women  are  faithless  to  their  mar- 
riage vows.  But  they  are  faithless  to  their  children, 
faithless  to  their  homes,  faithless  to  the  Church,  faith- 
less to  the  great  moral  traditions  of  their  country.  A 
few  of  them  take  the  next  step.  They  conceive  a 
passion — perhaps  for  some  boy  in  the  Air  Service. 
They  pay  for  his  meals,  buy  him  neckties  and  cigarettes, 
take  him  to  the  music-hall.  He  seems  to  them  much 
more  heroic  than  their  hard-working  husbands.  They 
come  to  regard  duty  as  dull,  and  the  narrow  way  as  a 
rut.  A  delightful  feeling  of  romance  blinds  them  to  the 
nobler  qualities,  the  enduring  virtues,  the  firmer  man- 
hood of  their  husbands.  Any  young  blackguard  in  a 
uniform  has  for  these  middle-aged  imbeciles  the  linea- 
ments of  Romeo  and  the  character  of  Hector.  Self- 
respect  is  consumed  in  the  transient  flame  of  a  romantic 
excitement;  they  go  to  the  devil. 

Fashion  is  fond  of  laughing  at  the  pretensions  of 
the  middle  class.  But  those  pretensions  are  merely  its 
own  spirit  on  a  smaller  income. 


i56  THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

I  have  visited  many  hostels  occupied  by  girls  of 
education,  who  are  training  for  professional  careers. 
The  casualties  in  this  quarter  are  the  casualties  of  semi- 
starvation.  These  girls,  many  of  them  fresh  and  grace- 
ful, some  of  them  most  beautiful,  are  hectic,  excitable, 
unstable,  neurotic.  When  they  are  hungry  they  drink 
tea,  when  they  are  racked  by  nerves  they  smoke  cigar- 
ettes. A  slight  illness  brings  them  to  collapse.  Many 
die  when  they  are  quite  young. 

Who  is  to  blame? 

These  girls,  fighting  for  their  careers,  spend  every 
penny  they  can  scrape  together  on  raiment.  They 
stand  no  chance  if  they  are  not  fashionably  dressed. 
Artificial  silk  means  more  to  them  than  honest  wool. 
The  good  Englishman  in  India,  denying  himself  a  holi- 
day at  home,  sending  all  the  money  he  can  save  to  his 
daughter  in  England,  believing  that  his  self-sacrifice  is 
providing  for  her  health  and  happiness,  learns  by  one 
mail  that  she  has  caught  a  cold  and  by  the  next  that  she 
is  dead. 

There  is  a  more  sordid  aspect  of  this  corruption. 
The  vice  of  our  public  streets  has  undergone  a  remark- 
able change.  There  is  a  new  race  of  immoral  women. 
They  come  from  offices  and  shops.  They  are  young,  and 
the  glamour  of  the  summit  has  bewitched  them.  They 
desire  the  life  of  fashion,  the  life  of  indelicate  clothes, 
gilded  restaurants,  the  theatre,  and  the  night-club. 

They  are  not  vicious.   They  have  none  of  the  criminal 


WOMANHOOD  157 

instincts  of  those  women  who  complain  of  their  competi- 
tion. Ask  them  what  they  want,  and  they  will  tell  you 
"a  good  time."  That  is  all.  They  want  to  see  life. 
They  have  looked  up  to  our  highest,  and  in  their  own 
small  way  would  copy  them.  So  they  sell  first  their 
modesty  and  then  their  virtue.  It  is  the  price  they  pay 
for  "a  good  time." 

We  sell  our  honours  for  money  by  the  hand  of  our 
Prime  Minister  and  in  the  name  of  our  Sovereign. 
These  girls  give  their  honour  for  the  same  exchange. 
Money  can  buy  anything,  even  what  is  called  an 
' '  illegal  operation. ' ' 

Go  lower  still.  There  is  a  collapse  of  the  most  primi- 
tive virtue  among  girls  who  live  in  the  slums  of  our 
seaport  towns.  They  are  so  shameless  that  they  get 
themselves  rowed  out  to  incoming  ships  that  they  may 
make  sure  of  a  sailor  when  the  vessel  comes  into  port,  be 
he  Lascar,  Negro,  or  Chinaman.  Parliament  has  just 
lately  had  to  move  in  this  matter,  so  great,  so  open,  is 
the  scandal ;  it  is  now  enacted  that  no  woman  may  enter 
a  port  "for  the  purpose  of  prostitution,"  or  be  rowed  out 
to  a  ship  for  that  same  object. x 

1  (1)  A  prostitute  shall  not  enter  or  be  on  board  any  ship  or  vessel  in 
any  port,  dock,  or  harbour  for  the  purpose  of  prostitution,  and  a  person 
shall  not  take  any  prostitute  on  board  any  ship  for  any  such  purpose. 

(2)  It  shall  be  the  duty  of  every  port,  d  ck,  and  harbour  authority 
by  the  exercise  of  any  powers  possessed  by  them  in  that  behalf,  to  take 
all  reasonable  steps  to  prevent  persons  from  resorting  to  any  port, 
dock,  or  harbour,  of  which  they  are  the  authority,  or  any  ship  or  vessel 
therein,  for  purposes  of  prostitution. 


158  THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

Some  of  these  girls  are  the  very  dregs  of  degradation. 
Most  of  them,  however,  are  inspired  by  the  same  motive 
which  moves  the  millionaire  to  activity.  They  want 
money.  And  they  want  money  for  the  same  reason 
that  the  millionaire's  wife  and  daughter  want  it;  for 
display,  for  rich  food,  for  excitement,  for  "a  good  time." 
Tell  them  that  it  is  wrong  to  be  immodest,  wicked  to  be 
immoral,  and  they  will  point  to  the  heights,  laughing 
you  to  scorn  for  a  canting,  psalm-singing  charlatan. 
They  have  ceased  to  feel  the  smallest  respect  for  virtue. 
After  all,  to  the  eyes  of  eternal  Judgment,  is  there 
much  difference  in  moral  values  between  the  summit 
and  the  abyss? 

There  comes  from  social  workers  in  all  quarters  of  our 
congested  and  violent  life  a  cry  that  borders  on  despair. 
The  womanhood  of  the  nation  is  becoming  corrupt. 
There  is  a  decided  movement  among  the  older  women 
towards  drunkenness,  among  the  younger  women 
towards  vice.  A  lady  who  has  visited  the  common 
lodging-houses  of  London  says  that  educated  girls  of  a 
quite  decent  class  are  now  to  be  found  there  among 
the  vilest  women.  Out  of  twenty-eight  inmates  in  one 
case  alone  fifteen  were  found  with  venereal  disease. 

Even  where  the  Commandments  are  not  broken 
the  spirit  of  virtue  is  ignored.  The  demand  of  these 
women  is  for  excitement.  They  cannot  rest.  To  be 
patient  is  to  be  tortured.  To  be  at  home  is  to  be 
imprisoned.     They  clamour  to  live  like  the  Rich.     The 


WOMANHOOD  159 

old  ideal  of  the  English  mother,  finding  her  heaven  in 
her  home  and  her  immortality  in  her  children,  is  no 
longer  the  fashion.  The  music  of  life  has  become 
livelier,  and  they  would  dance.  This  passion  for  knock- 
ing about  has  descended  to  lower  levels.  I  open  my 
newspaper  this  morning  and  find  the  following  report  of 
"A  Girl's  Gay  Life": 

Describing  herself  as  the  private  secretary  of  a  financial 
magnate,  N.  T.,  the  pretty  daughter  of  a  Treforest 
(Glamorgan)  collier,  made  her  home  at  the  Westgate 
Hotel,  Newport  (Mon.),  from  December  22nd  to  January 
1  st.  There  she  is  alleged  to  have  spent  much  time  in  the 
lounge,  smoking  cigarettes  and  entertaining  young  men 
to  champagne  suppers.  She  left  without  paying  her 
account. 

When  charged  at  Newport  yesterday  with  false  pre- 
tences involving  nearly  £12,  with  6s.  for  cigarettes,  the 
Bench  were  informed  that  the  girl,  who  was  supposed 
by  her  mother  to  be  employed  at  an  office  at  Cardiff,  had 
for  two  years  been  leading  a  gay  life,  supported  by  moneys 
from  a  source  which  she  would  not  divulge. 

The  girl's  father  offered  to  pay  the  debt,  and  as  the 
prosecution  did  not  press  the  matter  the  Bench  bound  her 
over  for  six  months. 

There  is  here  only  one  element  which  makes  the 
case  notable,  and  so  brings  it  into  the  limelight  of  public 
attention;  the  girl  could  not  pay  her  bill.  Anyone  who 
knows  the  chief  cities  of  the  provinces  is  familiar  with 
the  same  spirit  in  thousands  of  girls.  It  is  universal. 
Let  the  traveller  go  into  the  "lounge  of  the  great  hotels 


160  THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

in  Birmingham,  Manchester,  Liverpool,  Leeds,  Edin- 
burgh, Glasgow,  and  he  will  find  those  places  occupied 
mainly  by  girls  of  the  town,  extravagantly  dressed, 
rouged,  painted,  powdered,  either  accompanied  by  men 
or  keeping  their  eyes  open  for  a  likely  stranger  entering 
from  behind  the  screens.  They  are  out  "on  the  loose." 
The  labourer's  daughter  is  as  determined  as  the  daugh- 
ter of  the  clerk  and  shop  assistant  to  have ' '  a  good  time. " 

Descend  to  an  even  lower  level.  To  realise  the 
condition  of  modern  childhood  in  our  great  cities,  let 
your  mind  ponder  the  necessity  for  enactments  concern- 
ing children  under  sixteen  years  of  age  and  children 
under  fourteen  years  of  age.  Where  are  the  mothers  of 
these  children?  And  what  have  been  the  conditions 
of  their  home  life  ?  Is  it  unreasonable  to  ask  questions 
of  the  womanhood  of  the  country?  Is  it  not  folly  to 
wander  away  into  the  side-issue  of  economic  conditions  ? 

The  novelist,  Miss  Clemence  Dane,  has  lately  taken 
up  the  question  of  cruelty  to  children,  the  awful  and 
unspeakable  cruelty  which  exists  in  all  our  great  cities 
and  towns,  and  which,  for  some  unknown  reason,  is 
punished  so  lightly  by  the  magistrates. 

She  writes  of  "that  vilest  of  all  cruelties,  child  as- 
sault.' '    I  quote  the  following  instances  from  her  article : 

How  these  men,  guilty  of  unspeakable  offences  against 
children,  are  too  often  dealt  with  in  practice,  the  following 
random  extracts  from  newspapers  may  show.  J  omit 
the  unprintable  details. 


WOMANHOOD  161 

For  attempted  assault  on  a  child  of  four.  Bound  over 
on  account  of  previous  good  character. 

For  assault  on  child  of  seven.     Sentence :  six  months. 

For  stealing  leather  from  employers  (same  case):  six 
months. 

For  assault  on  baby  of  four.     Sentence :  £2  fine. 

For  assaulting  and  infecting  a  child  of  seven.  Sen- 
tence: twelve  months. 

For  assaulting  and  infecting  a  child  of  seven:  bound 
over. 

For  assaulting  (on  the  same  day)  two  little  girls: 
bound  over. 

For  assault  on  three  small  children — evidence  unfit 
for  publication.     Sentence :  £5  fine. 

For  assault  on  child  of  twelve  (six  previous  convictions 
for  the  same  offence).     Sentence :  three  months. 

All  this  horror  exists  beneath  the  smiling  surface 
of  our  national  life.  We  may  avert  our  heads,  but 
it  is  there.  We  may  refuse  to  think  about  it,  but 
it  is  destroying  us.  Yes,  destroying  us;  for  all  this 
horror  and  all  this  moral  lassitude  and  all  this  joyless 
turning  to  debauchery  for  relief  from  the  tedium  of 
modern  life,  all  this  means  that  the  great  central  ideal 
of  the  human  race,  a  pure  womanhood,  is  ceasing  to 
inspire  the  heart  of  mankind. 

Ask  social  workers  how  it  is  that  the  children  of 
our  cities  are  so  rapidly  depraved,  and  they  will  tell 
you  that  the  mothers  are  careless,  that  the  mothers  are 
often  themselves  utterly  depraved,  and  that,  in  any 
case,  the  idea  of  parental  authority  is  passing  away. 


162  THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

In  almost  every  case,  indeed  I  find  it  hard  to  discover 
a  single  exception,  the  mothers  of  girls  who  go  to  the 
dogs  in  their  teens  are  women  without  moral  energy 
and  without  ideals. 

We  are  not  reading  of  Siberia,  where  girls  of  thirteen 
are  often  mothers,  and  where  children  of  ten  are  often 
used  as  prostitutes;  we  are  reading  of  the  greatest 
country  of  the  world,  and  of  the  greatest  cities  in  that 
country.  Is  it  not  folly  to  wander  away  into  the  side- 
issue  of  economic  conditions?  Women  are  becoming 
bad.  There  is  a  moral  declension.  It  has  nothing  to 
do  with  economics.  It  is  a  spirit  appearing  in  the 
Richest  and  the  Poorest.  Housing  and  education  are 
no  valid  factors  in  this  problem.  In  every  circle  of  the 
community,  and  in  all  conditions,  morality  has  lost 
its  grip.  The  particular  woman  is  everywhere  an 
anachronism. 

As  I  write  there  is  a  photograph  on  my  mantelpiece 
of  Eucken.  I  never  turned  its  face  to  the  wall  during 
the  War.  Often  I  looked  at  his  message  on  the  photo- 
graph. "Rudolf  Eucken  sendet  besten  Gruss," 
followed  by  an  invitation  to  Jena. 

I  take  one  of  his  books  from  my  shelves.  This  is 
what  I  read : 

At  the  present  time,  when  the  State  is  engrossed  by 
economic  and  other  constantly  changing  problems  of  the 
day,  we  need  a  community  which  attaches  importance  to 


WOMANHOOD  163 

the  inner  problems  of  humanity,  and  which  directs  our  life 
towards  eternal  aims  and  values. 

Good! 

If  morality  be  weakened,  then  life  is  robbed  of  a  strong 
impulse,  of  an  ennobling  power,  and  of  a  dominant  aim. 
.  .  .  The  salt  of  life  is  then  lacking,  which  alone  can 
keep  it  fresh  and  healthy. 

Thus  spoke  Rudolf  Eucken  in  191 3. 

What  did  Alfred  Zimmern  say  of  this  great  moralist 

in  1914? 

.  .  .  men  like  Harnack,  Eucken,  and  Wilamowitz, 
who  would  repudiate  all  intellectual  kinship  with  Machia- 
velli  and  Nietzsche — men  who  are  leaders  of  European 
thought  .  .  .  publicly  support  and  encourage  the  policy 
and  standpoint  of  a  Government  which,  according  to 
British  ideas,  has  acted  with  criminal  wickedness  and  folly, 
and  so  totally  misunderstands  the  conduct  and  attitude  of 
Great  Britain  as  honestly  to  regard  us  as  hypocritically 
treacherous  to  the  highest  interests  of  civilisation. 

Zimmern  realised  the  peril  of  the  position.  It  was 
not  the  criminal  statesman  or  militarist  in  Germany 
who  raised  our  greatest  problem,  but  the  chief  moralists, 
the  most  noble  and  persuasive  philosophers,  of  modern 
Germany.  Eucken  regarded  our  fealty  to  Belgium  as 
an  act  of  hypocrisy ! 

What  are  we  to  say,  then?  Eucken  on  the  side 
of  Prussianism!  Eucken  supporting  the  odious  and 
pagan  theory  that  the  State  has  nothing  to  do  with 


164  THE  GLASS  OP  FASHION 

ethics !  If  this  madness  is  possible  in  one  of  the  noblest 
men  of  our  time,  what  are  we  to  expect  from  our  frivol- 
ous women,  our  women  of  villadom,  our  girls  of  the 
back-street  and  the  slum? 

Are  we  to  throw  up  our  hands,  like  the  Russians,  and 
say  that  man  cannot  war  against  the  spirit  of  his  time, 
and  that  the  Atlantic  of  tendency  will  always  defeat 
the  mop  of  moral  idealism? 

Are  we  going  from  bad  to  worse  ?  Is  the  present  time 
only  the  prelude  to  a  millennium  of  anarchy?  Are  we 
living  in  another  Drift  Age — the  whole  mass  of  human- 
ity shifting  like  a  glacier  towards  destruction?  Moral- 
ity— is  it  only  an  opinion,  a  convenience,  a  superstition? 
We  who  believe  in  self-control,  in  self-sacrifice,  in  self- 
improvement;  are  we,  perhaps,  very  old-fashioned 
people  whose  days  should  have  been  cast  in  the  times 
of  the  Puritans? 

It  is  not  in  English  nature,  I  firmly  believe,  I  ear- 
nestly hope,  ever  to  despair  of  a  great  cause.  There  is 
something  in  an  Englishman,  as  Goethe  knew  and 
acknowledged,  which  is  superior  to  the  greater  intelli- 
gence of  German  professors ;  it  is  our  English  character, 
our  strong  common  sense,  our  instinct  for  right.  Euck- 
en's  defection  must  not,  nay,  cannot,  destroy  the  very 
centre  of  our  patriotism — faith  in  human  perfection. 
The  times  may  be  opposed  to  us;  but  opposed  to  the 
times  is  something  stronger  than  the  clock,  stronger 
than  evil — the  purpose  of  the  universe.     We  know,  too, 


WOMANHOOD  165 

that  the  very  nature  of  evil  is  to  defeat  itself.  After  a 
little  the  palate  craves  for  wholesome  bread,  and  finally 
the  digestion  refuses  poison.  There  may  be  a  period 
before  us  of  great  moral  darkness,  but  the  sun  will 
return  and  we  shall  see  again  the  one  straight  narrow 
path  that  leads  forward. 

In  the  meantime,  are  we  merely  to  wait  till  the 
fever  has  burnt  itself  out,  and  the  patient  cries  in  the 
name  of  God  for  "something  bitter"? 

Perhaps  those  who  care  for  the  moral  foundations 
of  the  State  might  be  content  to  stand  aside  and  wait  for 
the  fever  to  burn  itself  out,  if  the  fever  had  its  rise  in 
some  folly  of  the  flesh.  But  who  that  greatly  cares  for 
his  country  can  bear  to  wait  for  the  end  of  this  fever, 
which  has  its  rise  in  the  moral  nature  of  the  individual, 
which  altogether  disowns  responsibility,  which  rejects 
the  higher  life  of  the  human  spirit,  which  is  against  all 
seriousness,  all  aspiration,  all  reverence,  all  modesty, 
and  the  most  dreadful  symptom  of  which  is  its  corrup- 
tion of  Womanhood  ? 

"There  can  be  no  time,"  said  Lord  Jeffrey,  in  a  nota- 
ble censure,  "in  which  the  purity  of  female  character 
can  fail  to  be  of  the  first  importance  to  every  community. 
.  .  .  The  character  and  morality  of  women  exercises 
already  a  mighty  influence  upon  the  happiness  and 
respectability  of  the  nation.  But  if  they  should  ever 
cease  to  be  pure  ...  to  overawe  profligacy,  and  to  win 
and  to  shame  men  into  decency,  fidelity,  and  love  of 


166  THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

unsullied  virtue  .  .  .  domestic  happiness  and  private 
honour  will  be  extinguished,  and  public  spirit  and  na- 
tional industry  most  probably  annihilated  along  with 
them." 

Those  words  were  written  more  than  a  hundred  years 
ago;  their  occasion  was  not  the  corruption  of  women 
who  knock  about;  they  were  inspired  by  the  trivial 
poetry  of  Thomas  Moore!  What  had  Lord  Jeffrey 
said  of  these  days  ?  The  crumbling  has  become  a  land- 
slide. 

Where  the  corruption  of  womanhood  is  concerned, 
no  one  who  hopes  for  a  greater  race  can  stand  idle, 
good  women  least  of  all. 

But  what  are  we  to  do? 

I  answer:  If  the  nation  is  going  wrong,  it  is  being  led 
wrong.  Who  are  the  leaders?  The  most  powerful  of 
all  our  leaders,  I  reply,  is  Fashion — not  Parliament,  not 
Church,  not  Press — but  Fashion.  If,  then,  we  would 
go  in  a  right  direction  instead  of  a  wrong  direction,  those 
who  set  the  nation  its  most  conspicuous  examples  must 
be,  not  equivocally,  not  half-heartedly,  not  wearily,  but 
enthusiastically  on  the  side  of  Excellence. 


CHAPTER  XI 

CONCLUSION 

Society  originates  in  the  need  of  a  livelihood,  but  it  exists  for 
the  sake  of  life. — Aristotle. 

The  open  secret  flashes  on  the  brain, 
As  if  one  almost  guessed  it,  almost  knew 
Whence  we  have  sailed  and  voyage  whereunto. 

Frederic  Myers. 

Never  forget:  The  higher  we  soar,  the  smaller  do  we  appear  to 
those  who  cannot  fly. — Nietzsche. 

In  the  course  of  this  essay  I  have  advanced  certain 
propositions  which  may  be  summarised  as  follows : 

Fashion,  because  of  its  conspicuous  position  in  the 
State,  exercises  the  greatest  of  all  influences  on  the 
nation. 

The  influences  of  modern  Fashion  are  injurious  to  the 
peaceful  evolution  of  the  British  Commonwealth,  being 
the  influences  of  ostentation,  self-indulgence,  lawlessness, 
cynicism,  and  frivolity. 

The  influence  of  Iniquity  is  not  to  be  so  greatly  feared 
by  a  nation  as  the  influence  of  Folly. 

It  is  by  the  domestic  door,  rather  than  the  economic, 
that  violence  enters  a  State. 

The  social,  political,  and  moral  health  of  a  community 

167 


168  THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

depends  mainly  upon  its  attitude  towards  life,  that  is  to 
say,  its  theory  of  existence. 

In  a  rational  theory  of  existence  it  is  impossible  to 
divorce  time  from  its  context  of  eternity,  place  from  its 
context  of  infinity,  man  from  his  context  of  evolution. 

At  the  head  of  a  nation  there  should  be  an  aristocracy 
of  intelligence  whose  manner  of  life  exhibits  the  truth  of 
this  theory. 

Out  of  these  propositions,  reminding  myself  of  all  the 
goodness  and  sweetness  that  exist  in  England,  I  develop 
the  concluding  proposition,  forced  upon  me  by  the  state 
of  public  morality,  that  goodness  is  not  enough. 

This  idea  is  not  new.  Aristotle  made  a  vital  dis- 
tinction between  the  excellence  of  conduct  and  the 
higher  excellence  of  intelligence.  But  Aristotle  did  not 
develop  his  thesis  to  its  revolutionary  conclusion.  That 
work  was  accomplished  some  four  centuries  later  in  the 
hills  of  Galilee,  accomplished,  but  afterwards,  except  for 
a  few,  hidden  away  out  of  the  knowledge  of  man  for 
nearly  two  thousand  years.  We  have  forgotten  that 
morality  is  not  enough,  altogether  forgotten  that  Christ 
proclaimed  His  theory  of  existence  as  good  news  for 
mankind,  Himself  as  the  light  of  the  world. 

When  it  is  perceived  that  goodness  is  not  enough, 
a  revolution  takes  place  in  the  human  mind.  It  flashes 
upon  us  that  it  is  an  altogether  different  thing  from 
merely  being  good  to  love  excellence.  No  longer  do  we 
think  of  death  as  an  end  or  the  "Last  Day"  as  an 
examination.     We  understand  how  it  is  that  some  per- 


CONCLUSION  169 

fectly  good  people  do  not  inspire  our  affections  or  are 
even  positively  tiresome.  We  see  how  it  is  that  life  is  so 
provincial  and  dull.  Goodness  is  not  enough.  There  is 
something  beyond  morality.  Love  of  God ;  how  differ- 
ent from  obedience  to  the  Mosaic  Law!  We  feel  our- 
selves flying,  through  the  eternity  which  now  visibly 
surrounds  us  on  every  side,  as  birds  fly  in  a  summer 
sky.  Joy  takes  a  new  meaning.  Power  clamours 
for  a  new  definition.  We  are  not  in  a  rut;  we  are  not 
shut  down  in  a  pit.  We  are  children  of  God,  and,  if 
children,  then  heirs  of  eternal  life;  and  eternal  life  is 
evolution,  evolution  towards  ever  greater  power,  ever 
greater  understanding,  ever  greater  bliss,  "the  reason 
always  attentive,  but  always  satisfied."  This,  I  think, 
is  the  natural  consequence  of  discovering  our  context  in 
eternity.  We  enter  on  a  new  birth,  a  birth  of  joy  and 
thanksgiving. 

I  am  coming  to  believe  that  we  may  now  be  moving 
towards  another  and  a  far  greater  renaissance  than 
that  which  ended  the  long  drowse  of  the  middle  ages. 
I  feel  that  this  present  darkness  has  become  so  stifling, 
and  this  present  confusion  so  inextricable,  that  we  may 
expect  humanity  to  rescue  itself  from  a  reversion  to 
barbarism  by  one  of  those  great  forward  movements 
which  at  long  intervals  in  history  have  saved  evolution 
from  a  fatal  halt  or  a  destructive  recession. 

What  will  this  next  step  be?  A  step,  I  think,  from 
the  excellence  of  conduct  to  the  excellence  of  intelli- 


i7o  THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

gence;  a  step  from  a  pious  hope  into  a  definite  intellec- 
tual conception.  The  present  depression  of  humanity 
has  its  origin,  I  believe,  solely  in  man's  degraded  sense 
of  his  origin.  The  human  race  feels  itself  like  a  rat  in  a 
trap.  We  began  in  the  mud  and  shall  end  in  the  mud. 
Life  is  reaching  the  end  of  its  tether.  There  is  nothing 
more  to  discover.  The  only  business  in  the  world  is  to 
get  what  you  want  before  somebody  else  gets  hold  of  it. 
Humanity  rots  for  a  new  definition  of  life. 

I  feel  that  distracted  man  would  now  welcome  one 
who  made  plain  to  him  that  the  gate  of  existence  still 
stands  wide  open,  that  human  life  is  no  cul-de-sac  but  a 
thoroughfare,  and  that  across  the  grey  ocean  of  moral- 
ity there  lies  an  undiscovered  New  World  of  spiritual 
adventure.  To  one  who  could  convince  humanity  of  its 
context,  could  reveal  to  it  the  universe  as  a  book  from 
which  the  page  of  earth  cannot  be  torn,  one  who  could 
make  it  perceive  that  evolution  is  at  work  now  in  the 
spirit  of  man,  just  as  it  was  at  work  millions  of  years 
ago  on  the  separate  elements  of  protoplasm,  to  such  a 
one  I  believe  the  human  race  would  listen,  at  first  with 
incredulity,  but  afterwards  with  relief  and  gladness. 
Then,  if  so,  the  earth  would  find  a  new  stirring  of  life, 
such  as  it  felt  in  the  sixteenth  century,  when  a  dawn 
broke  on  human  history  which  was  like  the  gates  of 
Paradise. 

The  renaissance  of  the  sixteenth  century  was  a  turn- 
ing back  on  the  part  of  depressed  humanity  to  the  light 


CONCLUSION  171 

of  Athenian  culture.  In  that  light  men  came  to  see  a 
new  world  at  their  feet,  and  to  speculate  on  a  new 
universe  around  and  within  them. 

Let  me  remind  the  reader,  in  the  words  of  Professor 
Muirhead,  what  the  most  modern  of  the  Greeks  be- 
lieved about  man  and  his  destiny.  To  Aristotle, 
"the  nature  of  man  is  not  that  out  of  which  he  has 
developed,  but  that  into  which  he  is  developing;  not 
what  he  is  at  the  lowest,  but  what  he  is  at  the  highest ; 
not  what  he  is  born  as  (to  borrow  a  happy  distinction), 
but  what  he  is  born  for." 

A  flower  is  not  less  a  flower  because  of  the  earth  out  of 
which  it  springs,  or  a  statue  a  statue  because  it  is 
resolvable  into  carbonate  of  lime. 

The  glory  of  the  flower  and  of  the  statue  is  that  their 
materials  have  been  transfigured  in  the  making  of  them, 
as  it  is  the  glory  of  their  materials  to  be  so  transfigured. 

Similarly,  it  is  the  glory  of  the  soul  to  have  moulded 
and  transfigured  the  body,  just  as  it  is  the  glory  of  the 
body  to  have  been  moulded  and  transfigured  by  the  soul. ■ 

Men  of  the  middle  ages,  turning  from  superstition 
to  walk  in  this  enchanted  garden  of  rational  and  fearless 
inquiry,  brought  to  the  earth  a  new  dawn,  and  to  the 
human  race  a  new  birth.  They  looked  about  them 
and  felt  themselves  free.  They  stood  upright  on  their 
feet,  conscious  of  a  new  dignity  in  man.  They  were  no 
longer  slaves  to  the  past;  they  were  voyagers  to  the 

1  Chapters  from  Aristotle's  Ethics,  by  J.  H.  Muirhead. 


i72  THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

unimaginable  future.  As  regards  our  own  nation,  over 
whose  island  cliffs  that  great  dawn  rose  last  of  all  the 
countries  in  Western  Europe,  the  new  birth  was  mainly 
the  work  of  a  small  and  virtuous  aristocracy  which  had 
exhausted  the  monotony  of  superstition  and  was  aware 
in  itself  of  powers  pressing  for  exercise.  It  was  a  spirit- 
ual palingenesis,  as  well  as  an  intellectual  awakening. 

Erasmus,  let  us  remind  ourselves,  extolled  the  Eng- 
lish nobility  to  all  mankind  for  its  learning  and  its  se- 
rious purpose.  He  compared  its  refined  discourse  at 
table  with  the  profligate  talk  then  fashionable  amongst 
priests  on  the  continent.  The  children  of  aristocracy 
were  educated  with  a  view  to  making  them  true  leaders 
of  the  nation.  Roger  Ascham,  that  characteristic 
Englishman,  attacked  with  matchless  power  every 
foreign  influence  which  tended  to  deflect  nobility  from 
its  gracious  duty.  Sir  Thomas  Elyot  held  that  just  as 
the  angels  nearest  to  the  Throne  of  God  were  those  most 
capable  of  adoration,  so  the  aristocracy  of  a  nation, 
grouped  round  its  King,  should  be  most  capable  of  set- 
ting an  example  in  all  virtue  to  the  other  classes;  by 
"the  beams  of  their  excellent  wit"  they  were  to  direct 
"others  of  inferior  understanding"  into  the  way  of 
"commodious  living."  Ascham  could  say  in  1550, 
"Never  has  the  English  nobility  been  so  learned." 

Nor  was  this  learning  merely  an  ornament ;  a  nobler 
spirit  than  humanism  moved  upon  the  face  of  those 
waters.    Sir  Thomas  More,  described  by  Erasmus  as 


CONCLUSION  173 

"the  man  of  every  hour,"  set  the  Commonwealth  an 
ideal  which  to  this  day  is  far  in  advance  of  any  demo- 
cratic state.  He  saw  that  society  existed  for  life,  not 
for  bread-earning.  He  hated  the  idea  of  overwork  for 
mere  wages,  and  claimed  that  the  worker  had  a  right  to 
leisure  for  the  cultivation  of  his  mind.  He  opposed 
himself  to  the  sporting  landlord  who,  by  turning 
his  tillage  to  permanent  pasture,  robbed  the  State  of 
its  strongest  citizens.  He  hated  the  cruelty  of  blood 
sports,  opposed  himself  to  capital  punishment,  and  was 
a  prison  reformer  of  the  most  humane  and  sensible 
character.  Private  property  had  no  religious  nimbus 
for  More;  his  passion  for  the  Commonwealth  led  him 
so  far  that  he  desired  even  the  abolition  of  capital. 
Man,  the  creature  most  dear  to  God,  was  the  supreme 
object  of  his  moral  and  intellectual  affections,  and  to 
ennoble  man  to  fill  his  mind  with  wonder  and  rejoicing, 
to  lead  him  away  from  all  that  depressed  his  soul,  to 
guide  him  onward  and  upward  into  those  paths  of  the 
spirit  which  alone  lead  to  his  destiny,  this  was  the 
desire  of  that  noble  intellect,  that  gentle  heart,  that 
characteristic  good  Englishman. 

It  was  because  the  Renaissance  proved  in  the  end 
false  to  the  aspiration  of  its  highest  minds  that  it  lost 
power  and  flickered  out  into  the  gloom  and  twilight  of 
disillusion.  It  looked  back  to  the  past,  but  not  far 
enough,  and  forgot  to  look  forward.  It  was  unconscious 
of  the  eternity  surrounding  man,  of  which  he  is  the 


174  THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

inhabitant,  and  through  which  he  is  a  voyager.  It 
became,  because  of  this  short-sightedness,  little  more 
than  a  revival  of  paganism.  Its  fortunes  fell  into  the 
hands  of  the  Italianate  Englishman,  the  mere  intellec- 
tual fop.  At  the  Restoration  it  was  the  possession  of  the 
coxcomb  and  the  pedant,  a  thing  without  soul,  a  thing 
so  shrunken  and  attenuated  that  it  had  no  room  for 
the  spirit  of  humanity.  Science  saved  it  eventually 
from  disrepute,  and  by  the  hand  of  Science  its  flag  has 
been  at  least  lifted  from  the  gutter,  and  carried  forward 
through  the  darkness  of  many  troubled  hours ;  but  the 
glory  and  joy  of  it  have  departed.  Men  no  longer  feel 
that  life  is  a  blessing. 

As  one  thinks  of  the  fate  of  the  Renaissance,  one 
recalls  a  great  saying  by  Coleridge:  "Across  the 
night  of  Paganism,  Philosophy  flitted  on,  like  the  lan- 
tern-fly of  the  tropics,  a  light  to  itself,  and  an  orna- 
ment, but  alas!  no  more  than  an  ornament  of  the 
surrounding  darkness."  He  showed  how  Christianity 
had  revolutionised  human  thought.  Philosophy  sought 
to  elevate  the  moral  character  by  improving  the  in- 
tellect ;  Christianity  reversed  the  order. 

By  relieving  the  mind  from  the  distractions  and 
importunities  of  the  unruly  passions,  she  improves  the 
quality  of  the  Understanding;  while  at  the  same  time  she 
presents  for  its  contemplation  objects  so  great  and  so  bright 
as  cannot  but  enlarge  the  organ  by  which  they  are 
contemplated. 


CONCLUSION  175 

No  man  taught  more  forcibly  than  Coleridge  the 
necessity  for  preventing  "the  rank  vapours  that  steam 
up  from  the  corrupt  heart,"  but  no  man  saw  more 
vividly  that  the  cleansed  heart  is  only  a  means  to  the 
infinitely  greater  end  of  an  exalted  spirit.  "While 
morality,"  says  Marsh,  "is  something  more  than 
prudence,  religion — the  spiritual  life — is  something 
more  than  morality. "  It  is  by  realising  his  kinship  with 
the  universe  that  man  becomes  the  creative  agent  of 
joy. 

This,  perhaps,  is  our  way  to  a  greater  renaissance 
than  that  which  illuminated  the  sixteenth  century,  and 
went  astray  in  the  seventeenth.  He  who  would  save 
the  human  race  from  darkness  must  go  back  to  the  light 
of  the  world,  not  to  assert  the  claims  of  theology,  not 
to  strengthen  the  hands  of  clericalism,  but  simply  to 
make  faith  in  a  spiritual  purpose  the  very  breath  of 
human  existence.  Immortality  must  be  an  intellectual 
conviction,  not  an  emotional  uncertainty.  Intelligence 
must  become  a  passion. 

Man  is  a  creature  most  dear  to  God.  He  is  a  citizen 
of  a  universe  that  is  infinite.  He  is  the  child  of  a 
duration  that  is  eternal.  He  cannot  be  dislodged  from 
infinity  and  eternity  any  more  than  a  day  can  be  dis- 
lodged from  a  year.  Loyalty  to  his  moral  nature  is 
necessary  to  the  understanding  of  his  destiny,  but  his 
true  happiness  lies  in  the  exercise  of  his  spiritual  facul- 
ties.   Until  he  comprehends  the  greatness  of  his  glory, 


i76  THE  GLASS  OF  FASHION 

and  the  unimaginable  splendours  of  his  inheritance,  he 
must  be  a  creature  of  unrest  and  ever  greater  confusion. 

Now,  in  this  is  the  excellency  of  Man,  that  he  is  made 
capable  of  a  communion  with  his  Maker,  and,  because 
capable  of  it,  is  unsatisfied  without  it;  the  soul  being  cut 
out  (so  to  speak)  to  that  largeness  cannot  be  filled  with 
less. 

In  this  renaissance  of  the  human  spirit,  which  appears 
to  me  our  one  way  out  from  the  present  darkness,  what 
part,  if  it  comes,  will  be  played  by  England?  What 
part  will  be  taken  by  the  aristocracy,  that  is  to  say,  by 
the  people  at  the  head  of  the  nation?  Can  Fashion 
help  us,  can  Mammon  help  us,  to  enter  into  a  new 
birth  of  the  human  spirit  ? 

I  think  the  work  of  preparation  must  be  done  by 
others.  I  feel  that  our  salvation  will  come  from  the 
good  of  all  classes — from  the  good  among  the  aristocracy, 
the  good  among  the  numerous  middle  classes,  the  good 
among  the  manual  workers — and  that  this  work  of 
salvation  will  proceed  from  the  knowledge  that,  beyond 
obedience  to  morals,  there  is  a  boundless  region  of  spirit- 
ual excellence  waiting  for  the  exploration  of  mankind. 
The  good  will  become  our  aristocracy  when  they 
understand  that  goodness  is  not  enough. 


Jh  Selection  from  the 
Catalogue  of 

C.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 


Complete   Catalogues  sfent 
On  application 


The  Mirrors  of  Downing  Street 

By  "A  Gentleman  with  a  Duster" 

800.  With  12  Portraits 

A  selection  from  a  host  of  reviews  of  an  amazing  and 
brilliant  volume: 

"  Since  Lytton  Strachey  shocked  and  amused  us  by  his  Eminent  Victorians,  no 
book  written  by  an  Englishman  has  been  so  audacious,  so  reckless,  so  clever, 
and  so  full  of  prejudices,  apparently  based  on  principles." — Maurice  Francis 
Egan  in  the  New  York  Times. 

"Of  fascinating  interest,  with  a  style  pungent  and  epigrammatic  .  .  .  does  not 
contain  a  dull  line  .  .  .  there  is  scarcely  one  of  the  great  controversies  which 
agitated  British  political  waters  during  and  since  the  war  that  is  not  touched 
on  .  .  .  the  author  is  partisan  in  his  friendships,  and  he  is  a  good  hater,  so 
his  work  is  altogether  engaging." — New  York  Herald. 

"A  very  serious  book,  without  being  heavy,  a  daring  work,  without  being 
reckless.  It  is  judicial  in  tone,  endeavoring  to  give  each  man  his  due,  setting 
down  naught  in  malice  or  partiality  ...  a  work  of  keen  interest  and  highly 
illuminating." — Cincinnati  Times-Star. 

"This  book  of  scintillating  wit  and  almost  uncanny  power  of  vivid  phrase- 
making." — N.  Y.  Evening  Mail 

"Some  of  his  characterizations  fairly  take  one's  breath  away.  His  epigrams 
are  as  skillful  as  those  of  '  E.  T.  Raymond,'  and  his  analysis  is  reminiscent  of 
Lytton  Strachey.  .  .  .  This  book  has  created  a  sensation  in  England,  it  will 
create  another  in  America." — News-Leader,  Richmond,  Va. 

M  It  is  a  book  that  every  intelligent  person  should  read,  dispelling,  as  it  does, 
a  number  of  the  illusions  to  which  war  conditions  have  given  birth  .  .  .  the 
book  is  one  to  be  read  for  its  light  on  specific  facts  and  on  individual  men. 
Often  the  author's  least  elaborated  statements  are  the  most  startling  .  .  . 
it  is  written  with  the  vim  and  audacity  of  Lytton  Strachey's  Eminent 
Victorians,  and  it  has  in  addition  a  very  vivid  news  interest,  and  it  is  just 
both  in  its  iconoclasm  and  in  its  frank  hero  worship — of  the  right  heroes." 
— Chicago  Post 

"It  is  one  of  the  few  cases  of  a  startling  work  being  also  a  fine  piece  of 
literature  .  .  .  the  author  is  obviously  on  the  inside.  No  merely  imaginative 
person  could  have  produced  such  a  picture  gallery." — N.  Y.  Evening  Telegram. 

"One  of  the  most  interesting  studies  that  has  been  presented  to  English 
or  American  public." — Troy  Record. 


New  York  G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS  London 


The  Startling   Book   Which   Has   Caused  a 
World-Wide  Sensation 

At  the 
Supreme  War  Council 

Lloyd  George  says:  "This  is  the  best  thing  that  has 
yet  been  written  about  the  war." 

Observer:  "Captain  Wright  challenges  contradic- 
tion, persecution,  and  even  prosecution.  .  .  .  It  is 
probably  the  shortest  of  all  war-books.  None  stands 
out  with  more  import  and  decision. " 

Birmingham  Post:  "  A  book  which  every  man  and 
woman  in  this  country  should  read.  One  is  not 
sure  that  this  is  not  the  most  cital  book  which  has 
been  written  about  the  men  who  conducted  the  war." 

Saturday  Review:  "We  have  had  many  apologies 
for,  and  as  many  attacks  on,  the  conduct  of  the  war, 
but  none  so  far-reaching  as  this. " 

Outlook:  "Captain  Wright  by  this  book  has  en- 
tered the  halls  of  the  immortals.  He  has  brought  to 
light  truths  that  will  destroy  great  reputations,  and  right 
mighty  wrongs. " 


G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons 

New  York  London 


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